Miles and Miles of Regret
by TheKennethAnger
Summary: Keiko has matters of contention to work out with Yusuke but he can only do so much with a knife in his side.
1. A Boring Life

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. I do not own the manga/anime characters, plots, or creation.

**And yes**, I know Gandara is not Tourin and not where Raizen lived or where Yusuke stays in Makai. You have to keep reading to understand why people keep saying Yusuke is staying in Gandara.

**Miles and Miles of Regret**

**by TheKennethAnger**

Chapter 1: A Boring Life

Keiko couldn't concentrate on much of anything.

The past few days her thoughts gravitated to Yusuke and she just couldn't concentrate on much of anything. Her classes, homework, and studying suddenly became irrelevant in terms of her priorities. Kurama let it slip that Yusuke claimed, for the millionth time, that he was returning from Makai to see her. Yusuke had been gone for nearly a year. After he came home when they were 18, as promised, he only stayed for seven months then basically evaporated into thin air and hadn't showed up since. She felt remorseful that she told him he may as well not come back, at least not for her. But she knew better and she knew that he knew better; that the moment he strolled back into the picture, she'd forfeit her spine.

"Keiko, did you realize that Haru was making a pass at you today?"

Keiko was momentarily shook from her thoughts as she fleetingly glances at her friend, "I'm quite aware, Mana."

Keiko soon found she and Mana had acquired company when their college schoolmate, Rie, inserted herself into the conversation, "You must really be a swollen-headed prude, aren't you, Keiko?"

Keiko deadlocked to a stop and glared at Rie as the petite raven-haired she-wolf pranced by her, "For your information, Rie, I'm already spoken for."

"Yeah, Satoru told me you're, like, in love with some brainless thug…what's his name…?" Rie tapped her chin, honestly not knowing Yusuke's name since she had never gone to school with him.

Before Keiko could retort, Satoru- Rie's rosy-cheeked senior boyfriend- interjected as he came to a standstill beside Mana, "Yusuke Urameshi."

Keiko narrowed her eyes at Satoru and enfolded her fingers around Mana's wrist to lead her away from Rie and Satoru, as well as their approaching cronies, to prevent herself from smart-mouthing them. However, Satoru snidely commentated, "Keiko, you should wise up! Urameshi is a worthless piece of shit, just like his mother! Let's face it, she would've made the world a better place with feticide!"

Every wrathful drop of blood in Keiko's body raced to her face and she turned, unable to let Satoru speak about Yusuke and Atsuko in such a manner, "Satoru, you should consider how inhumanly pompous you are. Yusuke is warmhearted and Atsuko-"

A member of Rie and Satoru's group that went to high school with Keiko, Kou, joined in the verbal assault once Satoru's group of friends walked up, "Urameshi isn't _warmhearted_! He's a pathetic bastard."

"Yeah," Takao, another schoolmate, scoffed, "I mean, come on, Keiko, the guy ran away. He obviously doesn't want to be with you so why are you still stuck on him? You could have one of us."

"I'd rather chew on glass," Keiko remarked as she turned to walk away, towing Mana along behind her.

Once Keiko and Mana were out of view of their classmates, Mana mildly inserted, "I'm so sick of those guys harassing you every day."

Keiko's mouth twitched into a grin, "It's just another thing I'm willing to take for Yusuke. I shouldn't have even said anything or bothered wasting my time trying to change someone's ignorant opinion."

"I won't lie, I don't think I could hold out on someone for as long as you've held out for him," Mana unobtrusively stated.

Keiko peered at the ground as she stopped walking and tilted her back flat against a fence dividing the glowing summer grass and the city sidewalk, "Yusuke is worth it."

"Well, if that's what you think, that's all that counts, Keiko," Mana smiled with a slant of her head, her chocolate hair following her movements.

"I know…I just can't stand when somebody says something bad about him or his mother. They don't know either of them," Keiko exasperatedly sneered and pushed off the fence she was perched against.

"I think those guys are just jealous," Mana reasoned.

Keiko sighed as she and Mana resumed trekking to their respective houses- which were on the same block- and she declared, "I wish Yusuke was home."

"I know you do," Mana patted Keiko's back.

Making their way through town, the second-year college girls coincidentally came across a lovable dunce.

"Hey, Keiko! I haven't seen ya in forever!"

Keiko came to a halt, "Hey, Kuwabara. How are you?"

"Don't give me that bullshit, Keiko, come 'ere!" Kuwabara exclaimed as he traipsed to Keiko and enveloped her in a bear hug. Keiko made a vexed sound when he elevated her off the ground only to put her down seconds later when Shizuru smacked the back of his head and told him to let her go.

Once Keiko's feet were firmly planted on the ground she admitted, "Shizuru, I didn't even see you behind Kuwabara."

Shizuru overlooked Keiko's pronouncement with the flick of her cigarette, "How have you been, kid?"

"I'm-"

Mana interrupted, "Hey, Keiko, I'll let you catch up. I have to be home to help with my brother's birthday party."

Keiko nodded, "Ok, I'll see you tomorrow." Once Mana scampered off, Keiko restarted her banter, "I'm just…fine…actually, kind of detached. I can't really concentrate on anything." Shizuru didn't have to ask Keiko why. Even Kuwabara, as clueless as he was, knew the reason Keiko was distracted was because of Yusuke. "Enough about me," Keiko wittily changed the course of the conversation, "why are you two on this side of town?"

Kuwabara eyes starred, "On my way to the train station to see _Yukina_. Ya know, 'cause she misses me."

Shizuru rolled her eyes and took a drag from her menthol cigarette, "You're beyond help, Bro."

"Shut up!" Kuwabara stuck his nose in the air.

Keiko looked to the splinters in the concrete of the sidewalk and investigated in a quiet tone, "Have you talked to Yusuke, Kuwabara?"

Kuwabara lost all traces of ungraciousness, "No, I haven't. Sorry, Keiko. Kurama, Hiei, and Koenma are the ones that actually get to talk to 'em regularly."

Keiko maintained her line of vision on the pavement and muttered unevenly, "Oh, ok."

Shizuru cut in, "But he told Koenma-"

Keiko assured, "Kurama already told me when I ran into him at the market."

Shizuru took a different route, "Come to the temple with us, girl. We can visit Genkai and Yukina together. I think Botan was going to come, too."

Keiko tried to mitigate, "I don't know, Shizuru, I've got gallons of homework to do and a test tomorrow and I'm not-"

Shizuru blew out a bar of smoke, "Spare me, Keiko. You'll be able to do that work in no time flat. Not to mention, if you recall, Puu is at the temple."

Keiko peered up with an overwrought expression, "Ok, I'll come."

"Atta girl," Shizuru enveloped an arm around Keiko's shoulders as she directed the younger brunette in the direction of the train station.

In due time, the trio were bouncing up the asphalt stairs to Genkai's temple. Yukina was out in the limits of the forest with her back turned to the group, picking pink primrose flowers. Kuwabara held his finger against his mouth to signal Shizuru and Keiko to be quiet. Keiko grinned and Shizuru rolled her eyes as Kuwabara began creeping towards Yukina. However, right as Kuwabara was about to grab her, Yukina's docile voice floated to his ears, "Hello, Kazuma."

Kuwabara huffed, "Hey, I was tryin' to sneak up on you!"

Yukina giggled, "I could tell. But surely you must remember I can sense youkai. I am a demon, after all."

Kuwabara moved to sit down beside the elfin ice demon, "So? I've snuck up on Kurama before and scared him and he's an S-class demon."

"You're so odd, Kazuma," Yukina jousted as she gathered the flowers she had been collecting into the grasp on her right hand.

Kuwabara shoved himself into Yukina's business, "Why are you picking flowers?"

"To lighten up the room for Puu; he's sick," Yukina enlightened.

Although Yukina knew that two other people had accompanied Kuwabara, she could only identify Shizuru's energy as the other one she was too unfamiliar with to know who it was. Unfortunately, when she turned Yukina found that the weak youkai she hadn't felt in almost a year was Keiko's. Keiko clasped her quivering hands, "Puu's sick?"

"Oh, Keiko, hello!" Yukina bit her lip, "…Um…yes, Puu is sick." _And has been on and off for the past year_.

"Where is he?" Keiko began rambling towards the temple.

"He's in the right ordinance room," Yukina clarified.

Keiko jogged to the right ordinance room of the temple, lightly saying hello to Genkai and Botan as she passed the baptistery room, and made her way to Puu. The large, flying dinosaur-esque slash basilisk creation was lying on his stomach, curled up like a wood louse while making purring moans of discomfort. Keiko kneeled beside the massive blue spirit beast and giftwrapped her arms around his neck, "Puu, what's wrong?" Puu's head snapped up, instantly recognizing Keiko's voice, and he used his malleable neck to pull her against him as he proceeded to lick her cheek a couple times before nestled his head back against his stomach, encasing Keiko. Keiko brushed her fingers through Puu's plume, "I've missed you, big guy."

Puu made a groan as Yukina, Shizuru, Botan, and Kuwabara made an entrance, their commiseration building up. Botan spoke, "Keiko, it's so good to see you."

Keiko tapped the back of Puu's neck a couple time, prompting the winged creature to loosen its hold so she could turn towards the group while leaning against Puu, "It's good to see you, too, Botan."

"You-"

Keiko's typical quaking voice sounded off, "Is Yusuke hurt?"

Botan responded, "I'm…not sure."

Keiko began stroking Puu's mane again when he mewled, "He's so stupid."

"Keiko-"

"Forget it, Botan. I'm just going to sit here for a while with Puu," Keiko disdained.

With a nod of their heads, Shizuru, Botan, Yukina, and Kuwabara retraced their steps to allow Keiko some time for contemplation. Once they joined Genkai in the baptistery, Yukina agilely reflected, "I hope Yusuke comes back soon."

"I'm gonna have to go kick his ass if he doesn't," Kuwabara barked. "It's not fair to Keiko. I don't see how she could stay so dedicated to such a stingy hothead."

"Shut up, Kazuma," Shizuru lit up another cigarette. "I don't want Keiko hearing your ineptitude."

Genkai agreed, "Shizuru's right, you twit, negativity and stupidity are the last thing Keiko needs to hear right now."

Eventually their discussion tapered off to mindless repartee and Shizuru excused herself to check on Keiko. She glided to the door of the ordinance room but stopped short when she heard Keiko talking to Puu, "At least I know you'll never tell on me, big guy."

When Keiko didn't say anything else, Shizuru knocked on the propelling door and slid it open, "Hey, kid, you want to go down to the beach?"

"No," Keiko attempted to smile, "I'm going to get going."

"We just got here like forty minutes ago," Shizuru confirmed.

"I know, but I have tons of things to do for school."

Shizuru cocked her hip, "Ok…"

Keiko wiggled out of Puu's embrace and kissed the beast's forehead and whispered, "I love you, Puu." When she stood at her full height and looked at Shizuru she stated, "If he gets any worse, will you let me know?"

Shizuru merely nodded. Keiko skated over the floor to exit the room and swiftly gave her regards to Botan, Genkai, Yukina, and Kuwabara. Kuwabara and Botan jumped to their feet and ran after Keiko, concerned she was leaving so suddenly. However, once they stepped onto the porch of the temple, Keiko was making tracks across the clearing, only a couple steps away from the stairs. They couldn't see an inch of her once they stepped off the porch, intending to go after her. Shizuru commanded, "Stop, you two. Leave her alone; she doesn't want to be bothered right now."

As Keiko skipped down the stairs at greased lightning speed, she could only dwell on whether or not Yusuke was hurt or sick. Not to mention, she could feel the pity impregnating the air in the temple and it drove her temporarily insane. Keiko found her way back on a train and chugging away from the forested landscape made of olive, pin, and sage shades. As she meditated on the train, once again she could only concentrate on Yusuke. Would she ever see him again; was he hurt; what if he didn't come back; was he sick; what if he was dying; what if he was dead… _Dead_. The word had become a four-lettered iniquity in her book. Of course, she then rationalized that Puu was still alive, meaning Yusuke was as well. Keiko gripped the fabric of her skirt and tapped her foot in annoyance that he had stayed clear of her for so long…again.

By the time Keiko got to apartment that she paid for with her half-time job, she was not in the mood for college-related chores and stripped off her clothes and fell into bed. Noticing a blinking of the light on the base of her telephone, Keiko jabbed the red button and the answering machine droned. _You have three new messages. Message one: _"Keiko, this is Dad! I've called a thousand times, where are you? Call me back!"_ Message two:_ "Hey, Keiko, this is Amaya, I was wondering if you could help me with this trig problem. Give me a call, girl!" _Message three:_ "Who do you think you are, Keiko?" Keiko whispered to herself with furrowed eyebrows, "Is that Satoru?" The message continued, "How dare you tell Rie I asked you out on a date?" Keiko shook her head, "What?" Satoru's voice become louder, "You'll regret this!" _End of messages._ Keiko vised her hand over her eyes, "What is going on? How did that jerk even get my number?"

Not long after hearing the messages, a knock resonated from her front door. Keiko pulled an old t-shirt that Yusuke wore last time he was home and a pair of shorts. Weary of who it could be, Keiko made her way to the clapboard door and looked through the peephole only to see red, literally. Keiko swung open the door, "Hey, Kurama."

"Hello, Keiko, how are you doing this evening?" Kurama grinned.

Keiko waved her hand back and forth, inviting the redhead into her apartment, "Let me guess, Shizuru sent you."

"That's accurate. She told me you were in doldrums and wanted me to come and make certain you were intact," Kurama illustrated.

"Yes, I'm fine, Kurama," Keiko sighed.

"I was in Makai today," Kurama proclaimed. "At Gandara, in fact. Yusuke maintains that he's coming home tomorrow."

"You may understand I'm still cynical about that," Keiko took a couple steps backwards to sit on her white and cerulean bird and floral print slipper chair.

"Understandable," Kurama solaced as he propped against the wall beside Keiko's front door with crossed feet, "but I have not a single diffidence in my mind that he'll show."

Keiko sunk against her cotton chair, "We'll see. Pardon me for not having very high expectations."

Kurama cooed, "You know that Yusuke loves you, Keiko. And believe me when I say that he hasn't been monkeying around with Hokushin and the rest of Gandara since he's been away. He has been slaving away."

"Doing what?" Keiko tempestuously sassed. "There's no reason for him to be in the Makai other than advancing his personal agenda to be more tenacious than everybody else, demon and human alike. That's all he cares about; fighting and getting stronger."

Kurama murmured, "Keiko, please understand that Yusuke has not been staying in Makai for eleven months just to assume superior strength and fighting abilities to surpass everyone. Trust me when I say he has a good reason why he's been gone."

"You tell me that every time we talk, Kurama," Keiko billowed and crossed her arms. "Why won't you just tell me this alleged reason?"

"It's not-"

"Your place," Keiko shook her head, "I know. Never mind, Kurama." Kurama attempted to get another word in but Keiko rejected the opportunity, "Look, I'm really tired so I'm going to bed. Thanks for checking on me."

Kurama didn't bother arguing as he gripped the doorknob and lightly unlatched the door, "If you need anything, I'm a phone call away, Keiko."

"Thanks, Kurama. Good night," Keiko waved.

After Kurama dragged the door closed, Keiko climbed to her feet to pace across the apartment living room and deadbolt the glossy gold-painted lock. She glissaded across the apartment to return to the summery comfort of her bed. She couldn't sleep though. _Tomorrow._ The next day way the only thing she could daunt on. After a while of tossing and turning, Keiko snatched the picture from off her timber nightstand. Botan managed to snap a picture of Keiko and Yusuke three months after he had returned after his three year absence. While visiting Genkai, she and Yusuke had trailed to the beach without the accompaniment of the others. Keiko was rattling on about something she had long forgotten about as Yusuke, seemingly for no reason, began shoveling sand into a hulking pile, carving a hollow into the sand with his cupped hands. Keiko finally asked what Yusuke was doing by the time he was patting the stockpile of sand. Yusuke only gave a mischievous grin and coasted backwards until the plane of his back settled against the elephantine mound of sand, using it like the back of a chair, as his body slumped into the crater he had dug. Before Keiko knew it, Yusuke yanked on her hand, causing her to collapse against him and he cradled her against the side of his chest with his arms entangled around her. The sky was blackening as she and Yusuke fell into a light slumber. Unbeknownst to them, Botan had taken to her oar in order to soar over the landscape to scope them out after a couple hours went by without word from them. Once she saw them curled up, she flew back to the temple to borrow Genkai's archaic camera. So came the birth of the picture she now held in her hands. Her fingertips ghosted over the glass encrusting the picture, coming to a stop over top of Yusuke's face. Not long after, Keiko laid the picture beside her on the bed and rolled over, unintentionally finding her dreamland.

The following day, Keiko was drained of energy and utterly on pins and needles. Today was supposedly the day Yusuke was coming home and she heeded how overstrung she really was. Her morning class was full of psychobabble from the teacher and classmates as she ignored her surroundings. The teacher dismissed the class by noon and Keiko couldn't leave soon enough. She wanted to make herself available for Yusuke when- if- he came home so she hunted for an area off the beaten path in the village green and sat cross-legged on the parkland ground, shooting for slowing her hammering heart at the mere prospect of her beloved's return. However, her lonesomeness was of short duration.

"Hey, Keiko!" Satoru disunited Keiko's peace, "Why did you tell Rie that I asked you out?"

Keiko scorned as she made direct eye contact with the senior, choosing to totally pretend Rie, Kou, and Takao weren't standing behind their ringleader, "I didn't tell Rie anything, Satoru."

Rie jeered with a sneer, "You told me at The Canary on Mint Street last night."

Keiko looked floored, "_The Canary_? As in the _bar_? I don't drink, I don't have any friends that hang out at The Canary, and I definitely wouldn't be talking to you, Rie. For your information, I was out of town until late last night. Jeez, are we in middle school here?"

Satoru went on the offensive, "You calling my girlfriend a liar?"

Keiko sighed and tucked her closed fist under her chin, "Since the shoe fits…"

"You're such a whore, Keiko," Rie derogated.

"You're exceptionally counterfactual, Rie," Keiko iterated and sighed. "Don't you have anything better to do than drum up lies and act like a preteen?"

Rie veered around Satoru and bent over to shove Keiko, "I do not act like a preteen! Just keep away from my boyfriend!"

"Oh, yes," Keiko pushed herself to her feet, standing a couple inches over Rie, "because I'm _totally like_ making a swipe for your impolite boyfriend. Just get a life and lose my number. I don't know how you and Satoru got my telephone number but it shows just how far you will stretch yourself to be immature."

"You…you…" Rie stumbled over her words as she searched for a proper comeback to Keiko's bluntness and decided to shove Keiko again.

However, Keiko felt the side of her that she usually reserved for Yusuke as she shoved back, causing Rie to trip and fall on her bottom. Takao moved to help Rie back to her feet as Satoru and Kou advanced on Keiko, as if they were going to pounce. Keiko stood her ground but when Satoru extended his hand as though he was about to grab her by the shirt, a decrepitating noise resonated through the dominantly deserted parkland as a masculine hand shot out over her shoulder.

"You lay a single fucking slimy finger on her, I'll break it off, you little bitch."

Keiko didn't have to take even a second to decipher the identity of her white knight as she spun around to cling to him, "Yusuke!"

Yusuke added a corkscrew motion, mercilessly twisting Satoru's hand as he haloed his unoccupied arm around Keiko's dainty waist. Yusuke didn't release Satoru's hand as Kou and Takao, having known Yusuke since elementary school, refrained in fear from helping their captive friend. Yusuke throttled Satoru's hand and derided, "Don't bother Keiko again. Is that clear or am I gonna have to break your wrist?" Satoru could only nod, his voice tangled in his vocal chords due to the pain stemming from Yusuke's grip. Yusuke compressed Satoru's hand until bones popped and his wrist was basically wrung into a full circle, "Remember how this feels, Satoru. If you or your shit friends even look at her the wrong way, the pain you're feeling now will be a dull comparison to what you're gonna feel." Yusuke released Satoru's hand and directed a threatening glare at Rie as the four college students darted away from him without so much as another syllable. Yusuke pressed Keiko against him as her fingers twisted into the cotton fabric of his black wife beater once her hands came to a halt on his mid-back in an embrace. Yusuke's free hand tangled into Keiko's tawny hair at the base of her neck. His lips connected with her hairline at the apex of her forehead when he muttered, "You ok?"

Keiko tremulously confirmed, "You came back."

"Keiko…" Yusuke exhaled, "I'm sorry I took so long to come back." Keiko didn't offer a response as she simply stuck like glue to him. Yusuke removed his hand from her hair and wrapped that arm around her neck, trapping her lengthy tresses under his arm and followed up, "I really am." Keiko still didn't speak. "God, Keiko, say something." When Keiko stuck to her silent guns, Yusuke's heated spirit was dampened. With a sigh, Yusuke forklifted Keiko from the ground with the arm around her torso and adjusted his other lower, his forearm skimming over the top of her jeans and settling below her bottom to secure her against him, allowing her to burrow her face against the base of his neck. Due to her proximity, Yusuke couldn't restrain from inhaling her aroma. _Oleander tea and lemon-mint._ Yusuke decided to comment at the risk of sounding creepy, "I've missed your scent, Keiko. Everything in Makai smells like unholy shit." Even this borderline bizarre comment didn't incite a response from her so Yusuke strengthened his hold and began sauntering across the tract of green with her legs separated by his hips as her feet dangled a few inches above the ground. Keiko grumbled something that was seemingly unintelligible but Yusuke managed to catch a few syllables and strode back to the tree Keiko had been sitting under before her scuffle with Rie and snatched up her book bag to swing it over his shoulder. Quickly readjusting his arm under her again, Yusuke again set out to carry her across the village green. Throughout the walk, Yusuke would ask which way they should go because Kurama, at some point, had told him Keiko lived in an apartment alone now and he wanted to go there for the matter of confidentiality. He'd see his mother later.

Keiko still abstained from actually speaking as Yusuke would define what street they were on and ask 'left' or 'right' and she would purely nod her head and squeeze her legs for confirmation. Yusuke noted that every person they passed on the street looked rusty daggers at them. Yusuke was tempted to yip at people to stop staring but he eventually conceded the picture he and Keiko made as he toted her down the street in the middle of the day was a bit odd. The couple hereafter made it to a residential area with mid-sized apartment complexes and houses littering the scene. Yusuke sought clarification, "Regency Apartments?" Keiko nodded and Yusuke inquired, "What floor?" A muffled reply of 'three' led him to enter through the nickel silver sliding doors of the outside elevator and jabbed the button to the top floor of the complex and stared at the dingy silver bonded metal wall of the elevator on his ride up, secretly still lounging in Keiko's scent. The elevator came to a dizzying standstill with a soft ring and Yusuke halted and bounced Keiko in his arms when she began to slip, "What number?" A stifled '301' resonated in Yusuke's ears and he murmured, "You're lucky I have top-notch hearing, you know." With only a few steps away from her apartment door, Keiko vocalized that the key was in the outside pocket of her book bag. He dislodged his arm from around her waist to slither his hand into the pocket and retrieve the oldish key and pop the lock on her door. Once they were inside, Yusuke stage-whispered, "You gonna let go?"

Keiko, knowing that they were alone in her apartment, streamed her hands around Yusuke's arms and used his concrete chest to push-up herself backwards to connect eyes with him. Yusuke called her name when he found inflamed eyes and the rouged nose of the young woman in his arms. Keiko admitted, "I didn't think you were going to come back, Yusuke."

Yusuke huffed, "I said I would."

"You say a lot of things, Yusuke," Keiko diverted her stare from his terra-cotta eyes and sniffled.

Yusuke knew that Keiko was referring to his marriage proposal that he regrettably did not follow through with due to extenuating circumstances. He suctioned in his lips before answering, "I know I do." When his half-baked answer came through, Keiko seemed to try to shield her ginger eyes from him. However, Yusuke wasn't so dense he didn't realize what she was doing. "Hey," Yusuke groomed a hand through Keiko's hair, "stop with the crying, ok? Come 'ere," Yusuke tightened his hold on Keiko, "stop crying."

Keiko's cheek had come to settle against Yusuke's and her lips touched down by his ear, "I thought you were hurt."

"Why'd you think that?"

"Puu was sick."

"I…" Yusuke knew he couldn't tell Keiko the truth about what happened to him, "I _was_ sick as of late but I'm fine now; just a cold or something." Keiko knew immediately when Yusuke paused that he was thinking up a lie to tell her. And she wanted to know why. But she'd hold off until she was in a more positive emotional condition. "You gonna quit crying now?"

Keiko snuffled, "Probably not."

Before Keiko could blink, Yusuke shifted one hand away from holding her, leaving his other arm around her waist, and clutched her jawline between his fingers and moved his head to the side. Keiko's eyelids sealed shut when Yusuke's lips meld with hers. Keiko involuntarily drilled her fingertips into Yusuke's scalp once her hands came to rest on either side of the back of his head to preserve the attachment of their lips. Each and every tendon of their mouths played a role in the kiss and Yusuke almost burned up and dropped Keiko when she drove her tongue forward as her blunt fingernails raked through his jet black hair, causing pieces of it to fall from its typical combed back style. Yusuke grudgingly pulled back and bore into Keiko's eyes attentively. Keiko noiselessly mouthed his name when he spun and trudged to her libra manila ray sofa to kneel onto the piece of furniture to lay her flat on her back against the ash gray cushions and lowered himself onto his elbows above her, feet tangling with hers at the other end of the couch.

"I'll _always_ come back for you, Keiko."

Keiko traced Yusuke's bloated bottom lip with her thumb, "I'm missing class."

Yusuke docked a kiss on Keiko's bottom lip before replying, "Feel free to do what you think you need to but that won't stop me from asking that you skip class, just this once."

Keiko exasperatedly sighed but gave in, "Just this once, Yusuke."

Yusuke beamed, "You want to get some lunch?"

Keiko turned a deaf ear to Yusuke's request as she bunched up the front of his wife beater and wrenched him into another igneous kiss. Yusuke's heart's desire made him wilt to Keiko's will and he impelled his lips strenuously against hers as he coiled his fingers of his right hand into a belt loop of her close-fitting jeans while holding himself above her with his left forearm. However, Keiko made it evident that she didn't want any space between them when she snaked her hand to the back of the arm he was using to hover above her and glided her hand under his elbow and tugged at it. When Yusuke didn't respond fast enough, Keiko reattached her hand to Yusuke's wrist and yanked on it, effectively coercing him to collapse and meld against every inch of her. If Yusuke was surprised, he didn't show it. He wiggled his wrist loose to entwine their fingers as his mouth dotingly coalesced with hers more fervidly than before. But just as they were catching fire, Keiko unknowingly botched their amorous actions. Her hips bridged and gyrated against his. Yusuke sloped upwards and levitated over Keiko on his free hand and his knees. Their eyes hitched onto the other's and he gave a squeeze to their connected hands, "I'm really hungry, Keiko."

"O-ok," Keiko bemusedly stated. Yusuke rocketed off of Keiko, only adding to her bad vibes about the entire situation. "Yusuke, what's…um…what do you want to eat?"

Yusuke distractedly mumbled, "Dunno."

"Yusuke…"

"Yeah?"

"Uh…never mind."

_What's wrong, Yusuke_?


	2. Beautiful Son

This chapter has many references to the end of the manga.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. I do not own the manga/anime characters, plots, or creation.

**Miles and Miles of Regret**

**by TheKennethAnger**

Chapter 2: Beautiful Son

"Yusuke! What's wrong? Stop! You're going to blow my house down!"

Yusuke slammed a pan from Keiko's kitchen against the floor, adding to the aggregation of kitchenware he had been haphazardly flinging onto the linoleum floor. Keiko flinched and jumped back at the noise, "Yusuke, stop throwing my dishes!" Yusuke finally ceased his distempered actions and doubled over, crossing his arms against the edge of the kitchen countertop and nestling his head in them. Keiko was somewhat spooked but she capered around the dispersed disarray of her dishes and silverware, noticing that she almost stepped on a fork to tug at Yusuke's arm, "What's wrong?"

Yusuke bashed his vertical fist furthest from Keiko against her countertop and stood up to look at her. Animosity and demoniac intentions danced in his henna eyes and he couldn't bring himself to make eye contact with Keiko. His teeth grinded as his fingers curled into fists and he shook his head, as though trying to dilute his anger. When Yusuke didn't answer, Keiko only offered an aggravated sigh as she spun on her heel and kowtowed to her knees to begin gathering up the dishes he had aimlessly tossed. Yusuke was instantaneously overwhelmed with self-reproach and he exhaled through his nose and kneeled parallel to Keiko and started to lightly pick up the mess. He attempted to apologize, "Keiko-"

"You know, you might be able to throw tantrums and dishes and wreck up the place at Gandara but when you're here you need to have an ounce of respect for my belongings," Keiko denounced as she stood to relocate her dishes to the sink.

Yusuke arose with a mound of dishes and silverware in his hands and sat the dishes in the stainless steel sink, "I know; sorry." Keiko didn't accept his apology as she turned to finish collecting her dishes. While kneeling on the floor, picking up pots and pans, she could only try to make sense of Yusuke's behavior since he had been back. First, he put an end to hot and heavy, salacious intimacy that _her_ Yusuke would never do- especially for food- and now the next day he was sabotaging her kitchen. Perceiving that Keiko wasn't going to pry, Yusuke elucidated on his own, "I went to see my mom today." Keiko feigned disinterest as she stepped out of the kitchen into her living room and made her way to her white and robin egg blue chair. Keiko didn't know Yusuke had been hot on her heels until she spun to sit down and his face was only centimeters away, "Bio-dad was there."

Keiko's eyebrows furrowed, "Bio-dad?"

Yusuke's mouth twitched a couple times at the corner before answering, "Yeah, as in my biological father."

Keiko looked to the side for a moment before tying in with Yusuke's gaze, "Why?"

Yusuke scoffed, "_Apparent_ly Mom and Bio-dad are back together. How the hell it came about, fuck me, I have no clue." He sarcastically continued, "After all, it's not like he got her pregnant at age 14 then left her to raise a child by herself and left her to face an entire community looking down on her as a drunken, irresponsible whore or anything."

Keiko guessed what else could be bothering Yusuke, "What did he say to you?"

Yusuke rolled his eyes and sneered, "First off, he called me kiddo. I'm almost 20 years old and he fuckin' called me _kiddo_. Then he asked me what I had been up to since the last time I saw him. I almost busted his face."

Keiko interrupted, "Almost busted his face or actually busted his face?"

Yusuke shrugged, "Does it matter?"

Keiko sighed and gripped the edge of the seat cushion to lean forward, "So you punched him…what else?"

Yusuke sat cross-legged at Keiko's feet and leaned his elbows on his knees, "I told Mom that I wouldn't be coming back if that motherfucker stayed."

Keiko bit her lip, "What did Atsuko say?"

"That I was being a brat," Yusuke's expression became neutral all of a sudden.

"Well…" Keiko fumbled with the white cotton of her stretch jersey short skirt, "…you have reason to be upset but maybe he's really repentant, Yusuke."

Yusuke didn't miss a beat, "I was never the kid that sat at my front door waiting for a dad to show up who never did, Keiko."

"I know," Keiko clasped her hands together.

Yusuke observed, "His shit was there. It looked like he'd been back in the picture for a while."

"I guess you won't be staying there while you're home," Keiko confirmed.

Keiko assumed a demeanor of bewilderment and insult as he presumed, "I guess I'm gonna have to stay at the temple."

Keiko half-heartedly pushed one of Yusuke's shoulders, "Why don't you want to stay with me?"

Yusuke blinked in consternation, "Because…I figured you wouldn't want me to. And your parents-"

"I live in and pay for this apartment by myself and I am an adult, Yusuke. And while I love and respect my parents, it's not their decision to make," Keiko resolutely ensured. "And why in the world would I _not_ want you to stay?"

Yusuke stared at Keiko. He felt like he was rendezvousing with a newfangled Keiko Yukimura as he vindicated, "I'm just sayin' you better be sure you want me shoved up your ass for an indefinite amount of time."

Keiko sanctioned immediately, "I'm sure I want you around, Yusuke. Just don't come in throwing my dishes around every time you're upset."

"Fine," Yusuke granted, "ruin all my fun."

Keiko grinned and linked a hand with Yusuke's, "Let's go to the park- after you clean my dishes."

The enamored couple leisurely meandered to the city park, occasionally swindling kisses from one another, and they began walking the extensive, winding flagstone trail that outlined the grassland. A quarter through strolling around the park, Yusuke stopped dead in his tracks, drafting Keiko back a step to make her turn to him, "Last chance, Keiko."

Keiko's head tilted to the side, "For what?"

"To back out of letting me stay at your apartment."

"Oh, just shut up already," Keiko puffed as she revolved away from him again.

Yusuke's mood improved so dramatically he decided to play tricks as they began walking, her leading him, and he quipped, "You know what I've missed, Keiko?"

Unaware of Yusuke's intentions, Keiko indulged, "What?"

Yusuke groped Keiko's backside, "Your perfect ass."

"Yusuke, you degenerate!" Keiko ripped her hand from his and twirled to slap him upside the head. However, Yusuke dodged her hit with encompassing laughter overtaking him as he skittered out of her reach onto the freshly-cut grass beside the trail. "We're in public!"

Yusuke teased her with a glimmering smile, "Oh, so it's ok as long as we're not in public?"

Scarlet glazed over Keiko's face as she reproved, "No! I swear if I wasn't in a skirt, I'd tackle you!"

Yusuke didn't relent from his badgering even when Keiko swiftly approached him to reprimand him, "Just like you tackled me last night? Besides, since when has a skirt ever prevented you from tackling me?"

Keiko made a reach to attempt to slap Yusuke again but he ducked under her hand as it swung around and he caught her from the side, her shoulder crushing against him. Keiko squirmed in his arms to escape his clutch, "You jerk, let me go!"

Yusuke laughed and angled his lips against her temple, "I'm never letting you go, doll."

"Oh, yeah," Keiko continued to wriggle, "because sweet talking me is really going to get you out of this." Keiko managed to swivel in Yusuke's arms, leaving her back depressed against his chest as she tirelessly struggled to free herself. Keiko would kick her legs slightly on occasion as she tried to pry his arms from around her. "You are so annoying! Let go!"

Yusuke laughed despite the back of Keiko's head bashing against his nose, "What's the magic word?"

Keiko made a move to step on Yusuke's foot, "Now!"

Through Yusuke's chuckles, the flirtatious couple heard their names being called. When Yusuke pirouetted towards the origin of the call, lugging Keiko in his arms, his smile transmuted into a grimace. Keiko's feet were again anchored onto earth and her spinal column straightened as her hands continued to grapple onto Yusuke's forearms from when he twirled her around with him. Keiko's cinnamon orbs found Atsuko. And beside her, with a Yusuke-induced bruise around his eye, stood "Bio-dad." Having never seen Yusuke's biological father, Keiko was struck that he was a, albeit bonier, carbon copy of Yusuke. The lofty man sported onyx hair and mahogany eyes framed by facial features that were nearly identical to Yusuke's aside from the age that shone through. His cheekbones, his nose, his chin, his lips, his eyebrows- Yusuke had taken all those characteristics from his father. One could tell by looking at Bio-dad's face and physical thinness that he had been a friend of narcotics for many years. Keiko knew Yusuke was still infuriated at Atsuko and Bio-dad so she spoke on his behalf, "Hello, Atsuko."

Atsuko smiled and came closer to the couple, "Keiko, how have you been? It's been…how long since I've seen you? About three months away from being a year?"

"Yes, I pretty much fell off the face of social networking since college classes began," Keiko bit her lip, hoping Yusuke wasn't going to explode in the park where children were playing.

Atsuko revealed, "I was afraid you and Yusuke had lost touch. It really worried me."

Keiko forced a smile, "We'll never lose touch, Atsuko."

"Good. Yusuke would be a failure if he lost you." Atsuko rotated her torso around to wave at Bio-dad to come closer, "Hey, come here and meet Keiko. She's Yusuke's dearest friend; has been ever since the sandbox days."

Bio-dad amiably made eye contact with Keiko, intently avoiding Yusuke's glare, and waved, "Hi, I'm Yusuke's-"

Yusuke cut in, "Biological, dead beat, miserable, faggot sperm donor."

Keiko impressed her fingernails into Yusuke's arms as Atsuko scolded, "Yusuke!"

Bio-dad injected with a disconsolate face, "It's ok, Atsuko."

Atsuko glanced back at Bio-dad, "No, it's not ok." The mother turned back to her son, "Yusuke, if you're living back home you need to accept-"

"Really?" Yusuke raged over Keiko's head, making her flinch, "Are you fucking serious, Atsuko? Don't tell me what I have to accept! I've accepted your inability to raise me and your incessant alcohol misadventures and your constant hypocrisy and your damn weirdo friends for years so don't think you're going to tell me I have to accept that junkie asshole, too, because I'm not gonna! And don't _sweat_ me coming home! I'm staying with Keiko!" Yusuke released Keiko, instead grasping only her hand, and rotated the opposite way of Atsuko and Bio-dad to march away. He waved without looking back, "Have a nice freakin' life!"

Keiko remained silent, knowing better than to get between Yusuke and Atsuko's altercations, but dared a glimpse at Atsuko and Bio-dad. Atsuko's hands came to veil her face then momentarily smeared them downwards, leaving only one hand to cup the side of her cheek as she looked on with a contorted expression. Bio-dad came forward and embraced her to allow her to weep into his shoulder. Keiko looked back to Yusuke but found no sign that he was going to turn back. The pace Yusuke had set to evade his mother and father quickly slingshot his parents out of view. Yusuke didn't say anything and Keiko felt the bad chemistry she had the day before as they powerwalked to exit the park. Keiko was only further perturbed when Yusuke relinquished his hold on her hand and came to a gridlock stop beside a blossoming cherry tree and stabbed his closed fist into its trunk. The cherry tree shook from Yusuke's phenomenal power and blushed, salmon-colored leaves fluttered from their supporting branches. When Yusuke drew his fist back, Keiko registered the splintered bark hanging from the base of the tree and a distinguished fissure from the impact of his blow. Keiko fidgeted her hands and whispered, "Yusuke…"

When he turned to address her, Keiko caught a gander of something that unnerved her.

Helical, jagged dashes of black adorned his forearms.

Keiko stuttered as she stared at his semi-emerging tattoos, "Y-Yusuke…"

Yusuke followed Keiko's line of vision to his forearms and cursed before turning around. Unsure of what may or may not be happening, Keiko held her tongue. After a few moments, Yusuke turned back around and the ancestral tattoos had vanished. Yusuke met Keiko's timid eyes and extended his upturned hand, "Sorry. Come on, let's get out of here." Keiko hooked her jittering fingers with Yusuke's but her trembling hand prompted him to slip his free hand around to rest over her spine and draw her to him, "Dammit, Keiko, don't be scared. I'm never gonna hurt you no matter how pissed I get."

Keiko examined his serene eyes, "I know. Why did…why were your tattoos arising? Was it purposeful?"

Yusuke eluded the question, "Not sure and no. Anyway, I'm gonna walk you back to your apartment then I think I'm going to see Kurama for a while."

Keiko nodded and Yusuke and she resumed their trip back to Regency Apartments. The mute, jokeless air surrounding them on their way back in the cooling dusk followed them into the apartment. Keiko latched the door shut without taking her gaze off of Yusuke. She probed him for information, "Why are you going to see Kurama? It's borderline nighttime; can't you wait until tomorrow?"

Yusuke hesitated, "I dunno, Keiko. I don't think so."

Keiko was perturbed by Yusuke's evasive behavior and responses. She didn't want him to leave because she was afraid he would do something ill-advised or chancy. Above all, she was anxious that he wouldn't come back. She deduced that something was happening internally with Yusuke after witnessing his tattoos moderately bleeding through the flesh of his arms. Keiko made an effort to let him talk, "Yusuke, what happened in the park with your tatto-"

"I'll be back later, Keiko."

Keiko's lips were plastered shut as Yusuke dashed out the door. After the door fastened, she gave a titanic sigh and ran a hand through her tan locks. His guise left her utterly perplexed as she murmured to her devoid apartment, "He's just going to skip out on me again, isn't he?" Keiko wrapped her arms around herself and arrested the tears threatening to spill at the brims of her eyes. She could understand if Yusuke was having psychological predicaments but, she bitterly thought, that he didn't have to make her feel inept to get a point across. Keiko clambered onto her couch and flailed her hand behind her to yank the afghan from the back of it and cover up. Her eyes concentrated directly ahead, her vision committed to watching the green digital numbers of the clock on her stove.

Without predetermination to do so, Keiko fell into the land of Nod after two and a half hours ticked by without any indication of Yusuke's return. The sky had become as dark as the grave and the only light throughout Keiko's apartment gleamed from the dull bar seeping through the bottom of her front door from the street light that was adjacent to her apartment. Keiko was abruptly awoken to the sound of the door slapping shut. Keiko buzzed when she heard an indignant sound after a smacking noise, "Yusuke?"

"Where's the damn light in this place?" Yusuke challenged. "Why are you sitting in the dark?"

"I was asleep. And it's on the wall next to the cabinets," Keiko spoke in a sotto voce.

When Yusuke flipped the light to life, he found Keiko curled up like a fetus, concealed to her nose in a cover. Her tousled chestnut hair was mushrooming over the side of the couch and her glistening, half-lidded eyes fixed on him. Yusuke's mouth molded into a half smile at the mirthful picture she painted and he trudged to tower over her, "Don't you want to go to your bed?" When Keiko shook her head, Yusuke arched over and clawed the cover off of her. Keiko curled up tighter on her side before Yusuke wedged one hand under her scrunched legs and the other under her upper back. Yusuke straightened to his full height with Keiko bundled in his arms and took her to her bedroom. He situated her into her bed, pulling the covers up to her shoulders, and pecked her lips, "Love you, Keiko."

Keiko's hand shot out and her fingers hooked into the back pocket of Yusuke's jeans after he turned to leave, "Where are you going?"

"To the couch," Yusuke looked over his shoulder.

"Get in the bed, idiot," Keiko uncurled her fingers, retracting her hand. "Do you really think I'd make you sleep on the couch while you're here?"

Again feeling like he was just meeting Keiko, Yusuke was double checking she was positive, "Well, yeah, I mean originally. You don't have to let me sleep in your bed just 'cause you feel bad to make me sleep on the couch. I've slept on worse…" Yusuke grumbled lowly, "starting with the floor of Alaric."

"Yusuke, get in. I'm not offering so you don't have to sleep on the couch," Keiko implored, "I want you to sleep in the bed with me."

Yusuke felt prickles up his spine, "You've become awfully forward since I've been gone."

Keiko huffed and rolled her back to Yusuke, "Get in or don't." Keiko didn't have to wait long to slump into the indention his body made as he laid on the bed. However, a few minutes passed and Yusuke didn't do what Keiko wanted. She hassled to spin around on the bed, alarming Yusuke, and perched onto the elbow closest to him, "You are so preposterously irritating!"

Yusuke's eyebrows arched in confusion as she made an alloy noise of exasperation and frustration as she vehemently seized his wrist and roughly rotated back around, haling his hand with her movements to force him to arch his arm over her torso. It finally dawned on Yusuke that Keiko was strong-arming him to snuggle her. She didn't hesitate to clasp her closed fingers over his palm and he didn't hesitate to squeeze back. Yusuke taunted her, "How the hell was I supposed to know what you wanted?"

Keiko sighed and turned the topic to the one she really itched to talk about, especially now that she had him imprisoned by the hand, "You made Atsuko cry today, Yusuke." Yusuke remained silent so Keiko furthered her speculations, "Are you really so upset that your dad is back that you're going to completely brush off your mother's tears?"

Keiko felt the scratch of Yusuke's jeans against her legs as his body contortioned to sit up with his feet over the ledge of the bed. He tried to repeal his hand from her hold but she only grabbed tighter, "Look, Keiko, I'm not going to sleep in here just so you can pick at my conscience."

"Well, you kind of need to have it picked at, Yusuke. Don't you want-"

"Let go of my hand; I'm going to the couch," Yusuke huffed and twisted his hand.

Keiko simply added her other hand to hold his fledgling one, "Your father is obviously back because Atsuko wants him back. And your dad is probably doing all he knows to do to make amends with you."

Yusuke propelled off the bed, intending to yank his hand out of Keiko's grip. However, he didn't count on Keiko refusing to let go even as his movements tossed her towards him and wrenched her torso over the side of the bed. Yusuke's reflexes were catalyzed in a flash and he caught her by the shoulders as a squeak of surprise bolted from her lips. Yusuke scolded her, "Goddam, Keiko, I almost knocked you to the floor."

Once Yusuke sat her upright again, she ripped her hand from Yusuke's, "Forget it, Yusuke. I should know better than to think you care what I have to say. Have fun on the couch."

Keiko had turned her back to him again as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, "Of course I care what you have to say; I'm just…I don't know…defeated right now, ok?" When Keiko didn't acknowledge him, he hunkered onto the bed again and placed a hand on her shoulder, "Listen…I can't accept him because I've spent my life wishing he was dead."

"It doesn't detract from the fact that you made your mom cry," Keiko resigned her infuriated tone after his wounded admission. "Get back in the bed. We'll stop talking about it; I wasn't telling you that you have to forgive your dad, I just wanted to make it clear how distraught you made Atsuko."

Yusuke summarily reassumed his position behind Keiko, this time domineeringly bridging an arm around her and puzzling his legs with hers, "I love you, Keiko."

"I love you, too, Yusuke."

Over the next week, Keiko established that she was overjoyed that Yusuke was home. Since his return, she didn't have to deal with any harassment from her college classmates and she had someone to hold her at night. Above all, he was there to make her laugh and remind her of the extent to which she was loved. Keiko was walking home from classes as she thought back to three days prior. When she had come home, Yusuke began following her step for step as she treaded around the apartment. She finally addressed him and he stuck his bottom lip out. Keiko had only seen Yusuke make that face a couple times out of the entirety of knowing him and she laughed as she demanded to know what he wanted. His unanticipated answer was, "Your oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies." She shook her head but went to whip up his request and he stood behind her the duration of mixing ingredients and placing the cookie sheet on the second shelf of the oven. As she waited for the cookies to bake, she made her way to the couch and sat down and he sat beside her. After 15 minutes, she arose and he again shadowed her. As she pulled the cookie sheet from the oven, he stood behind her, looking over her shoulder. She could only laugh and went to open the window to let the heat that emitted from the oven air out. When she turned back towards the kitchen, Yusuke, the cookie pan, and the oven mitt were gone. Then she heard a door shut and a lock click. Keiko grinned at the memory of Yusuke's ruse. She figured he probably didn't get many sweets while in Makai and she let him get away with pigging out on the cookies.

However, out of the goodness the memory had brought her, there had to be an equipoise established. Something bad had to happen. When she got into the apartment, her bedroom door was shut. She set her book bag down by the front door and made her way to the back of her apartment to open her door. As her hand extended for the doorknob, she stopped upon hearing Yusuke talking to someone, "Look, I can't leave right now."

"Lord Yusuke, I just think it would be best if you came back to Gandara."

"Well I don't."

"Ayame is waiting for you."

"I'm sorry but she'll have to wait. I just got here, I can't leave."

"She won't stop asking about you. Neither will-"

"Are you even listening to me? She will have to wait! I don't wanna be away from Ayame anymore than she wants to be away from me, but I got shit to do."

Keiko felt her hands shake as she made light footfalls back to the front door. Jarring the door open, Keiko slammed it to make it seem as though she had just arrived. She scuttled into the kitchen and began to tug items from the cabinets and drawers to cook dinner. Before long, Yusuke emerged from the bedroom and leaned against the refrigerator, "You're back earlier than usual. Don't your evening classes last like three hours?"

"Sorry, I wasn't aware I had time restrictions," Keiko satirized.

Yusuke's eyes fleetingly narrowed, "I didn't say that. Damn, you're in a bad mood, aren't you?"

"Just leave me alone, Yusuke, I've had a bad day," Keiko asserted as she promenaded to the refrigerator and yanked the hand despite him still leaning against the bodice.

"Oh, yeah?" Yusuke indulged his inquisitiveness, "What happened?" Keiko didn't answer or even glance at him before turning her back to him after shutting the refrigerator. "Were you bothered on campus by anybody?"

Keiko huffed, "No."

"I'll kick their ass if they did," Yusuke spiritedly assured.

"If you want to fight so much, you should probably go back to Makai," Keiko aloofly stated.

That altered Yusuke's attitude and he ironically responded, "Oh, no, please don't sugar-coat it for my sake. Hell, if you want me gone just say so."

Keiko slapped a spatula onto the dormant oven and she purposefully released it, allowing it to catapult to the left backburner, "I'm going to lie down."

Keiko tromped out of the kitchen and turned down the hallway without even looking at Yusuke. But he was having none of it as he followed her, "Keiko, what did I do?" Keiko swung the door closed as she went into her bedroom but Yusuke plastered his hand flat on the door and opened it to get to the bone of her contention. Yusuke speedily crossed the room to trail Keiko, who was rounding the corner of her bed, and grasped her shoulders to turn her to him, "Keiko, what the hell did I do?"

"Nothing, Yusuke!"

"Then why are you so pissed off?"

"Am I never allowed to have a bad day?"

"Stop putting words in my mouth."

"I want to lie down, Yusuke!"

Yusuke granted Keiko's wishes and let her dive under the covers of her bed, her back to him and he leaned against the windowsill. He could only stare at her and mull over her atypical behavior. Minute dustings of tear-cut raindrops began spritzing on the outside glass of the window after a few minutes of Yusuke becoming stationary to observe the back of Keiko's head. Then his teeth gritted in sync with a bolt of lightning rocketing across the sky. He looked at the floor then back to Keiko then back to the floor and announced, "I'm going to Kurama's."

Keiko declared with a scoff, "Don't get struck by lightning; it will be attracted to the copper wire your brain is made of."

With that slur, Yusuke blazed out of her room and she quickly heard the front door slam shut. She was wonderstruck as she determined that Yusuke wouldn't be back for hours, if at all, and she was going to get something done in the shadows of his behavior. She sailed off her bed and jostled to the front door to slip her shoes on. Once the apartment was locked up, Keiko took to the streets and made her way down a beaten path. Her closed fist banged against cherry wood.

"Keiko?" Atsuko guided Keiko inside and took her dripping rain jacket, "Come on in."

Keiko frowned, "Are you ok, Atsuko?"

Atsuko smeared the back of her hand under her ruby nose and her distended eyes flickered between Keiko and the ground, "Where's Yusuke?"

"He says Kurama's but I'm not completely convinced," Keiko trod into the house, past her love's mother and stepped backwards to lean against the door as she closed it. "I'm more concerned about you." Bio-dad peeped out from behind the wall separating the stretch of the hallway and the kitchen. Keiko politely addressed him, "Hello, sir."

Bio-dad stepped into the open and bid Keiko a smile and a small wave, "Hello, Keiko. You don't have to call me sir. It's Yuudai."

Keiko nodded, "Ok. I'm sorry about Yusuke's comments and behavior earlier; he has a tough time adjusting to change."

Yuudai mildly shook his head and looked uneasily at the floor and wall opposite him, "It's within his right."

While peering at Yusuke's father, Keiko noticed the sordid shape of the living room and made her way towards it, "I disagree."

Keiko kneeled beside the glass coffee table and began gathering items into her arms, prompting Atsuko to rush to her, "Keiko, don't do that! You don't have to do that."

Once Atsuko doubled over to take the objects from Keiko's hold, the younger brunette clasped her forearm, "It's ok, Atsuko, I want to help. I think you'll feel much better if I helped clean."

"You're an eccentric, Keiko. You probably clean up after Yusuke's lazy ass then you come to clean up after his mother; you're one of a kind," Atsuko smiled and assisted in the ensuing clean-up of the living room, even going so far as to dust. Atsuko and Keiko were at the end of dusting upon reaching the top shelf of the open pressed wood bookcase. Atsuko sniffled, "Keiko, I don't know what to do. About Yusuke, I mean."

"Yusuke is rebellious and rancorous which makes him difficult to deal with," Keiko asserted with knowing. "I called him out on making you cry and he just got angry so I'm still trying to figure out something to do, too."

"Come with me onto the backyard patio," Atsuko instructed and trudged with sunken shoulders towards the sliding glass doors. Keiko soon joined her on the veranda and she shut the door to sever Yuudai's capability of hearing, "I've spent all these years away from Yuudai and I missed him every second. I never fell out of love with him but now I feel like my son's on the chopping block so I can be happy. I-"

"Atsuko," Keiko stepped back a couple steps to sit on one of the natural finish, acacia wood bistro chairs on the patio, "Yusuke just isn't in the appropriate place to accept this. Something is happening with him and I can't figure out what just yet. Since he's been home, he's been having acute spurts of rage and isn't acting like himself. And I do mean that his rage has become so volatile that it's too erratic even for him."

Atsuko pushed her bangs back, "Did discovering Yuudai here trigger it?"

"I don't know. He had been acting strangely since the first day he was home but yes, the initial interaction between him and Yuudai exacerbated his irregular condition." Keiko slumped into the chair, "But to be frank, I think he's less upset about his relationship with Yuudai than your relationship with Yuudai. He admitted that he couldn't accept, quote, unquote, Bio-dad because he's spent his life wishing his father was dead. And he became more furious when he started talking about how you were treated by Yuudai in the past."

Atsuko twirled the other bistro chair in a 180 and seated herself across from Keiko, "I want to tell you the whole story, Keiko. I was 14 and Yuudai was 15 and we were dating. We hadn't been dating long before a rushed, heat-of-the-moment type of situation left me, low and behold, pregnant. By the time I had Yusuke, I was 15 and Yuudai was 16 and Yuudai discontinued his education to get a job. And he started working at an auto shop. Well, tons of bikers and truckers would come there and they would always have alcohol on them. So Yuudai eventually started drinking with them when they were there and would bring alcohol home and convinced me to drink it when Yusuke was at my mom's house. As time went by, we kept getting worse and worse into booze. It became sustenance and we would drink two, sometimes three times a day, eventually even with Yusuke there, which was all the time after Mom moved. But then it all went horribly wrong. The clients introduced Yuudai to heavier substances and soon enough he was a full-blown drug addict. When he would come home at night we'd have fights and, depending on how jacked up he was, it would turn physical. The drugs just got worse and worse and the fights became more vicious and we'd bruise each other to hell and back. But I had enough after one fight. I still remember it. Yusuke was five by that time and it was actually a few months before he met you. Yuudai came home and we started fighting and he pushed me and I fell down. Yusuke ran up and kicked Yuudai and ran to me to help me up but Yuudai grabbed him by the arm and yanked him around and slapped him in the face. So I got up and shoved Yuudai and started punching him and told him to get out. So he left and that was the last time I saw him until Yusuke was 13. We accidentally bumped into each other in a gas station and he looked…awful, to say the least. And I gave him my number in case he ever needed anything and we have kept in loose touch ever since. Last year he called me and said that he had been clean for a year. I didn't believe him at first and told him to meet me in a public place and we'd talk. When we met up, the first thing he asked about was Yusuke. That's when I knew that the real Yuudai was back and that crazed, drugged Yuudai was dead and gone. And like I said, I never really stopped loving him but I steered clear of him while he was on drugs because I didn't want to chance him hurting Yusuke. Of course, now I'm aware Yusuke probably could've taken him by age nine but even still, that slim chance still existed and I…" Atsuko tilted her head back to rest over the top of the patio chair to gaze at the clouded sky, "You know, Keiko, I've been a really shitty mother to Yusuke. I know that. But that doesn't mean I don't love him or that I don't care about what happens to him. And it doesn't mean that I don't care what he thinks about me and Yuudai together again. I gave up the love of my life for my son and my son gave up me to do what he wanted. I know it makes me kind of selfish but I don't think it's fair that it's ok for Yusuke to give up me to do what makes him happy but I can't give him up to be with someone that makes me happy."

Keiko hunched forward, "Atsuko, Yusuke loves you, too, but he doesn't know how to love or accept his father because he's spent over a decade resenting him. Maybe Yusuke just needs time to come to terms with the authenticity of this whole thing. But in all honesty, I think Yusuke is infuriated because he thinks Yuudai has not changed and he will hurt you and leave you again. And even though he's loath to admit it, the child within Yusuke's heart is too embittered towards Yuudai to forgive. Just give him time and let me try to reason with him."

Atsuko arose from her chair, influencing Keiko to rise, and encased her son's fiancé, "Thanks, Keiko."

The women re-entered the apartment and Yuudai was twiddling his fingers against the edge of the kitchen countertop, vaguely smiling towards them before Keiko walked up to the low-key island to directly face him, "Yuudai, don't get discouraged by how Yusuke's acting. Please understand that he has to come to terms with you on his own and there's nothing you can do to expedite him to the place you would like him to be at. Give him time; I'll talk to him, ok?"

Yuudai still generally evaded eye contact with Keiko as he lightly responded, "Thank you, Keiko. I really appreciate it."

Keiko returned to her methodical cleaning of Atsuko's apartment through the following hours, talking mostly to Yusuke's mother and occasionally speaking to his father. She pictured Yuudai to be boisterous and confrontational like Yusuke but he was the opposite- evasive and wholly unconfident. The night had become stormier and more energetically perilous by the approach of midnight. Keiko, Atsuko, and, in due time, Yuudai had scarcely finished cleaning the apartment when a thundering banging rattled the house. At first chalking the noise up to the storm raging outside, the banging became incessant and Keiko was the first to realize someone was at the door. She rushed to the window that permitted a view of the front porch and her suspicions were realized. She stomped to the door and hitched it open, "What, Yusuke?" Yusuke was saturated in rainwater and his hair was matted against his face and neck as it had been rinsed clean of product. His viridian t-shirt was sodden and his jeans were soaked so thoroughly that they had become a good three shades darker blue than normal. Keiko immediately caught something off. One of his eyes had splashes of ruby in the iris. She barely heard Atsuko call Yusuke's name before he savagely fastened his fingers around her wrist wrenched her through the doorway. Keiko began resisting and throwing all her weight backwards to ply out of his duress, "Yusuke, what are you doing?" Yusuke didn't even turn to look at her and continued to drag her behind him, "Yusuke!"

Atsuko braved the rain and hotfooted to her son and Keiko, "Yusuke! What the hell are you doing? Let go of Keiko right now!"

When Yusuke swung Keiko around by the wrist to turn to his mother, she was surprised to find tribal tattoos draining through his arms, face, and the skin at the base of his neck and the uneven and serrated skin on his biceps as he roared, "You _bitch_, diu yheab pgurtanv loxquis plokijhav!"

Keiko gravely shrieked, "Yusuke, stop!" Yusuke only tightened his hold on her, spurring her to do the only thing she could think of to kill the situation, "Ow, ow, ow, _Yusuke_, _stop_! You're hurting me!" Atsuko began jogging into the heavy rain towards the typically mutually worshipful couple as Yusuke rotated to look at Keiko.

Keiko caught sight of Yusuke's eyes widening and the look of trepidation in them as he gauged what he was doing. His fingers hotly dislodged from Keiko's wrist and stared at his curling fingers. Atsuko reached around Yusuke's shoulder and twisted her hand into the front of his shirt, wringing water out in the process, and she screamed, "What are you doing, you bastard? You hurt Keiko!"

Keiko dashed towards the mother and son to place a graceful hand on Atsuko's shoulder, "Atsuko, it's ok, he didn't hurt me."

Atsuko countered, "You were just screaming at him that he was hurting you." The older woman seethed as she slightly jerked Yusuke back and forth with her clutch on his shirt, "What's wrong with you, Yusuke?"

Keiko manipulated Atsuko away from Yusuke with light movements and held onto the mother's hands, "Atsuko, it's ok, I just said he was hurting me so he'd stop. I knew he'd stop if I said and he thought he was hurting me."

"Keiko-"

"Atsuko, go inside, I promise I can handle Yusuke just fine," Keiko gave Atsuko a momentarily hug and turned back to Yusuke. He stood in a narcosis, staring at his hand with widened eyes and flaring nostrils. She paced back to Yusuke and glued her fingers into the hem of his olive shirt to lead him down the deserted, immersed streets before reaching a canopy to find shelter under a couple blocks away within a canopy walkway. Once Keiko came to a stop, she found Yusuke's eyes stapled shut and strenuous breathing fought through his lips. She encased his waist in her arms and compressed the side of her face against his chest. Her drenched bionic blue terry ruffle dress showered rain droplets in a halo around her feet, adding to the unevenly drizzled lines of rain from Yusuke's clothes. She proclaimed loud enough for him to hear her over the rain peppering the shingled roof of the canopy, "Yusuke, you didn't really hurt me."

"I'm sorry," Yusuke swiveled his hand into Keiko's lengthy, dampened hair, "I don't know what came over me. I don't even remember walking to my mom's apartment…I…fuck."

"Yusuke, I'm alright," Keiko peered up at Yusuke, who timidly looked back at her. "I swear you didn't-"

"Today has been one big mistake, Keiko," Yusuke lamented with increasingly capricious breathing.

"Yusuke," Keiko cupped her hands on the sides of his face as she rocked onto her tiptoes and repeated herself when he tried to look away, "Yusuke."

"Keiko, something's wrong with me," Yusuke bemoaned as his fingers enclosed her wrists.

Keiko whispered, "I know."

"I can't let myself be around you while I'm like this," Yusuke reasoned.

However, Keiko mildly slapped the side of Yusuke's face, "You aren't going to go AWOL on me again. So remove the notion from your head."

"Kei-"

Before Yusuke could establish a full word, Keiko secured her lips against his, the day's past occurrences provisionally forgotten. Yusuke's fingers began to coil and tangle into the roots of her saturated hair as he kissed her with every ounce of apology he could muster. When he pulled back he ghosted his lips over one of her cheekbones, "I shouldn't have stormed out on you today."

"You seemed to be in a jumpy mood when I came home anyway," Keiko covertly took a crack at figuring out the meaning behind the conversation between Yusuke and who she had assumed to be a Gandara messenger. "What were you doing before I got home?"

Yusuke didn't miss a beat when he muttered, "Nothing. I was sleeping. I woke up when I heard you come in."

Keiko had a quelling form in her chest and a Judas kiss sweep over her pneuma: Yusuke just flat out lied to her. But she didn't want to resurrect the Yusuke that had just moments ago yanked her by the arm and dragged her outside like wheeled luggage. Keiko released him, "Let's get back to the apartment."

By the witching hour, Keiko could only stare at Yusuke's latent face as he rolled over in his sleep with a hitch in his relaxed breath. She wanted to shed tears and hit him until he saw God. _He's cheating on me._ Keiko sat up, tossing the covers off in a rage, and made her way to the door as the name she heard earlier floated like a dead body in her brain. _Ayame. Ayame. Ayame._

She was so enwrapped in her menacing thoughts that she didn't notice Yusuke had awoken when she got up or that he was less than an arm's length behind her by the time she made it to the door. He placed his hands on her shoulders, "What's wrong, Keiko?"

She surged forward out of his grip and turned to him, "Don't touch me, Yusuke!"

Yusuke approached her regardless, "Why the hell not? Look, I said I was sorry I grabbed you and I swear-"

"You _never_ get it, Yusuke! After all these years, after _fifteen_ years, you still can't figure out what makes me upset!" Keiko turned and skittered down the hall as she stated, "Maybe you should work on that!"

Yusuke's feet moved on their own accord to tread after Keiko, refusing to let her do anything on that ending note, "What? Is this about my mom or somethin'?"

Keiko emotively asserted as she began slipping a shoe on, "No! This isn't about Atsuko! This isn't about Yuudai! This is about you and me! Mostly about _you_!"

Once Yusuke got to Keiko, he looped his fingers into the second shoe she was trying to put on and tore it out of her grip, aimlessly tossing it behind him, "What the hell ever happened to that one invention? You know, _words_. How can I know what you're upset about if you don't tell me?"

"I shouldn't have to," Keiko countered. "If you don't know what you do to upset me by now, maybe you never will, Yusuke."

Yusuke overlooked her statement as he kneeled to the floor in front of her and cradled his hand on the back of her knee to arrest her leg and hold it up. She lurched forward from the sudden loss of support and caught herself on Yusuke's shoulders as he slid the shoe she had donned from her foot and tossed it behind him like the other shoe. Then he stood up and full tilt wrapped an arm around her neck, the other around her waist to utterly detain her, "You're not leaving this apartment Keiko."

"Let go!" Keiko attempted to push off his chest but his strength excelled hers as he held her to him, "I'm going to my parents' house!"

"No, you aren't," Yusuke protested and lifted her from the flooring to return and restrict her to the bedroom. Despite her flailing to get away, Yusuke deposited her at the foot of her bed. He clutched her palms to pin her hands against the bed as he stood between her jean-clad knees, arching over her, "What. Did. I. Do, Keiko?"

Keiko became so inhibited her bottom lip jounce and lozenge tears buoyed over the corner of her eyes, trailing across her temples as she lay back on the rim of the bed. She couldn't address her suspicions of infidelity; she was too frightened that they were true. So she chose a different route, "Why haven't we gotten married?"

Yusuke's defensive face fell, "That's why you're upset? Because we aren't married yet?" Yusuke used the grip on Keiko's hands to draw her forward into a sitting position and he locked vision with her ecru eyes, "I fucking swear, Keiko, we will get married. I made that promise and I intend to keep it." Keiko stored that comment away for later as she closed her eyes. Unable to keep his self-disgust at the thought of making Keiko screaming/crying upset under control, Yusuke relocated his hands to either side of her head and melded their lips together. He just didn't know what else to do. In due time, he felt Keiko's elegant hands constrict his biceps as her lips moved against his, prompting him to lower her onto her back again. He coasted over her and began caressing any part of her he could get his hands on, deciding that he would take this situation as far as his condition would allow. Yusuke and Keiko seemingly forwent breathing as their mouths fused repetitively. Yusuke quickly became hypersensitive to every twinge of physical and emotional stimulation once an aphrodisiac noise absconded from Keiko's throat. Her hand slipped up the back of his shirt and almost undammed his control when her nails impressed into the skin around his spine in addition to her legs twining around his waist. However, the venereal strain became too thick and Yusuke was about to lose control when Keiko started to drag his shirt up. This was his checkpoint. He push-upped off of Keiko and reached behind his back to unchain her legs from around his waist. Not wanting to witness the discontent on his fiancé's face, Yusuke dove beside her and nestled against her, using his arm to anchor around her. He declared, "I love you, Keiko, and we _will_ get married, ok?"

By the time Keiko was able to fall asleep she was more beclouded by Yusuke's behavior than ever before.

However, progressively, Yusuke's behavior would only grow more bizarre and cryptic as the days passed. On multiple occasions for weeks after the marriage (re)vow, Yusuke received a visitor at Keiko's apartment, which in the beginning instantly set off red flares since nobody besides his parents knew he was staying with her. The visitor looked human but she rightly suspected otherwise. He asked Yusuke to come 'hang' with him with words that were obviously attempted to seem like a human's speech. The demon was a disastrous actor. Then Yusuke would agree to go only to return no more than twenty minutes later. Keiko refrained from calling him out on her observations but added the irregularity to her list of issues to investigate. And the chance to investigate came after three weeks of visits from the 'human' friend when they made the mistake of mentioning going somewhere only a few blocks away. Keiko could still not confront Yusuke head on about all the indicators towards an obvious inference of double-crossing because she couldn't decide if she wanted to have iron-clad proof that the love of her life had feelings for another woman but she did snatch the opportunity to find out who this demon that kept coming to her apartment was. She scribbled out a fabricated grocery list to use as an excuse for being out if she were to be caught pursuing the two men. When they finally came a stop on the pier a few blocks away from Regency Apartments, Keiko sat on the bench that faced opposite them, settled in a small patch of grass overlooking the docks and tuned in.

Yusuke sighed, "What is it this time?"

"The problem is only growing Lord Yusuke. You need to come home."

"I told you to stop fuckin' coming to Keiko's apartment, got it?"

"Yes I know you warned me of the possible consequences; I apologize. But this situation has gotten out of hand."

"I need a while longer. I'm gonna have to make something up to tell Keiko about why I have to leave."

"What about the truth?"

"Do you have a screw loose or somethin'? I would never tell Keiko."

"But why not?"

"We've been over this, you stupid bastard. She's the last person I ever want to find out about what's happening."

"I just don't understand why you feel the need to lie about it."

"Because Keiko is a dainty, uncorrupt human and couldn't handle it."

"Lord Yusuke, consider what you are saying about her. Since you two are intended, you better-"

"Yeah, well, I'm not sure we'll stay intended." Keiko sealed her lips to cache the whimper wanting to escape and blinked at maximum speed to fan away the tears. "I don't think I can marry her. At least not right now. Not while my heart and mind is elsewhere."

"But if-"

"How's Ayame?"

"She roams around the fortress asking everyone every day when you'll be back. She misses you terribly."

Yusuke sighed, "I wish I was there. I want to be there for my little darling spirit but I just have things to put in line here first. Tell her I'll be back before the week is out. And we'll spend as much time together as she wants and do whatever she wants. Tell her I love her and I can't wait to come home."

"Well, Lord Yusuke, if you-"

Keiko took to her feet, unable to hear any more, and hotfooted it back to her apartment at terminal velocity. As soon as she shut her front door and locked it, she fell to a heap on the floor and sobs became seeping from her like clotted blood. Keiko bumbled to herself, "He loves her. Yusuke loves someone else…how…" Sniffles became prevalent and gurgled sobs and speech cut loose from her, "I'm so…_stupid_! What the _fuck_ did I _think_ he was doing staying away this long?" Keiko lay on her side in the opening of her doorway with her lengthy hair ruffled into pools of chestnut around her head, neck, and back. She pulled the front of her thin fashion t-shirt over her face and sobbed into the material. She had never been as _dainty_ in her entire life as she was at that moment. She could withstand Yusuke being bloody and bruised; she could withstand fights with him; she could withstand his broken promise. But she could not endure Yusuke being in love with someone that wasn't her. She scoffed through her increasingly gut wrenching sobs at her electric thoughts, not being able to decide how to handle this predicament. Keiko's face was still burrowed under her shirt and her sobs were just as radiant as when they began by the fifteen minutes it took Yusuke to return. Keiko was torn between not caring that he saw her and not wanting him to see her at all. But she couldn't collect the energy to move.

"Keiko!" Yusuke closed the door and rushed to kneel beside her, "Keiko! Are you ok? What happened?"

Keiko's grating, high-pitched shrieking met his ears, "No, I'm not ok! Get out of my apartment!"

She discounted the sincerity in his voice as he hectically inquired, "Keiko, what's wrong?"

"Get out of my apartment!" Keiko screamed through the fabric of her shirt and coiled away from his touch as he tried to lift her up.

Yusuke's voice escalated and his thoughts were wild as he gripped the shoulder positioned against the floor to sit her up and jerked her shirt down even though she protested and fought him, "What's happened? Keiko! What's happened?"

"_Get out_!"

Keiko smacked Yusuke's face repeatedly and her closed fist pulverized against his left collarbone and pectoral. Yusuke tried to assuage the delirious woman fighting him as he caught her belligerent hands, "Keiko, what the fuck's wrong?"

Keiko looked him dead in the eye and screamed bloody murder to his face, "_Go back to Gandara_! _I don't want you here_!"

Yusuke assumed a grieved, tormented expression and tried to formulate words, "K-k…what? W-what did-"

Keiko leaned forward, at first Yusuke thought she was going to kiss him, and she whispered through labored breath and cut outs in her voice, "We're breaking up. Your commitment to me is over. You're free."

Keiko severed herself from Yusuke and began storming through the house. Yusuke felt like every organ in his body had ceased to comply with each other as he shuffled after her and grabbed her hand, "Keiko, stop. Why are you doing this?"

She did not turn to face him as she seethed and tried to writhe out of his grip, "You know why."

Yusuke became frantic, "No, I don't."

Keiko tried to take steps and still did not turn, "I don't want you here! Go back to your demons and asinine fighting and get the hell away from me!"

"K-Keiko…" Yusuke lurched forward to impress his fingers of his free hand on either side of her jaw to turn her to face him, "we…tell me what I-"

"I said you're _free to go_!" Keiko wailed.

Yusuke's entire form was quaking and his cinnamon eyes searched her reddish tearstained ones frenziedly, "I…Keiko…p…p-please tell me…wh-"

Keiko bellowed at the top of her lungs, "_This is what you wanted, Yusuke_! _I'm giving it to you_! _So take it and run because I never want to see your face again_!"

Yusuke was in such prostration that he involuntarily lost strength in his arms and released Keiko. She took the opportunity to sprint to her room and lock the door. Yusuke didn't know if he should stay or he should go but either way he slid down the wall of the hallway until his bottom landed on the floor. His emotions were blistering every crevice of his being and he couldn't generate a legitimate thought. He became so overwrought he warped his hand into the front of his shirt and started heaving. Not entirely sure what was overtaking him Yusuke got the shock of his life when he reached the apex of his emotions.

Luminous, zircon liquid drizzled from his eyes.

He was crying.

Yusuke looked from the droplets landing on his forearms to Keiko's door before he berated himself for whatever he had or had not done to bring this on. She just kicked him out of her life and Yusuke never felt more barren. Then his tears only exacerbated when he heard moaning, keening sobs from her. Her sobs drove him away, unable to bear them since he was not allowed to lull them.

His mother abandoned him.

His truelove dismissed him.

His reasons for staying died.


	3. No Misery Is Worth You

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. I do not own the manga/anime characters, plots, or creation.

**Miles and Miles of Regret**

**by TheKennethAnger**

Chapter 3: No Misery is Worth You

Keiko was trying her best to get lost in the plethora of college students but it was futile. Shizuru had seen her. Between her, Botan, and Yukina, they'd find her one way or another. Keiko went to cross the street lined with stagnant traffic when Botan gave a 'bingo' and grasped her elbow, "Keiko, did you not hear me calling your name?"

Keiko sedately smiled, "No, I didn't. Sorry, Botan. How are you?"

Botan lugged her arms around Keiko, "Just overexcited to see you!"

"Alright, Botan," Shizuru cut in as she came from the other side of the feculent bus stop bench, "you had too many cups of coffee at Java House, didn't you?" Shizuru talked directly to Keiko, "She had four cups."

Keiko plastered a smile on- one that Shizuru immediately noted was fake- and addressed Botan, "You already have volumes of energy; that many cups were unnecessary."

Botan grinned and tapped the top of her head with an index finger, "You can never have too much energy!"

Yukina interjected, "I think not." The tiny ice apparition gave Keiko a quick one-armed hug, "Hello, Keiko."

Shizuru noticed Keiko's foot was tapping at a hurried pace as the brunette asked, "How are you, Yukina?"

Yukina smiled, "Good."

Shizuru interposed, "Trying to get away from my harassing, hedonistic brother. The idiot can't give her two minutes peace before he starts on that stupid spiel about his fingers and string and love and all that shit."

Keiko tightened her hold on her books, "That sounds like Kuwabara. Hey, guys, I have to go."

Botan prodded Keiko with her fingers and stuck her tongue out, "Oh! Kurama said Yusuke came home! I bet you need to get home to Yusuke and-"

Even in her hyped up state, Botan caught the shimmering tears building in Keiko's eyes as she stammered, "I…um…no that's not it."

Keiko was halfway turned around to fly the coop when Shizuru pressed a hand on the younger woman's shoulder, turning her around. Botan, Yukina, and Shizuru were perturbed when they found Keiko's eyes abundant with tears. Shizuru mumbled, "What's up?"

Keiko bit her lip a couple times before she ducked down, out of Shizuru's grip, and took a couple steps back. Her fractured voice admitted, "We're not together anymore."

Botan's mouth dropped, "…_What_?"

Keiko's head shook before she turned swiftly on her heel and navigated down the street, attempting to flee the three women whose pity was crushing her. She was basically hustling down the street, knowing that a trio of most likely feral women was hot on her tail. She was hoping to run into Mana to create a diversion to evade them but the bustle of the street didn't allow for her to locate anyone. Then she decided to trek over the side of the small hill the sidewalk sat on top of to the concrete flood plain that also served as an underpass. She was crossing her fingers that they would skip over her but luck wasn't on her side. Shizuru was the first to make it down the granulating concrete stairs that lead to a couple feet from where Keiko sat. The shifty, heartbroken woman could only draw her legs to her chest and rest her eyes against the jean material stretched over her knees. It didn't take long before Botan leapt to Keiko's side and threw an arm around her, "What happened between you and Yusuke?"

Keiko groaned without raising her head, "It doesn't matter. We're over and that's it."

Botan's dreadful eyes connected with Yukina's then Shizuru's. The smoker of the group dared to ask, "Is this a normal, we-had-a-little-tiff-but-we're-super-pissed that you and him usually have or do you honestly think you two are really ove-"

Keiko's head shot up and she shouted at Shizuru, "We're over! He is no longer welcome in my apartment or in my soul!"

Botan and Yukina were too taken aback by Keiko's shouting and declaration to continue the interrogation, prompting Shizuru to take the reins, "What did he do?"

Keiko looked away from them to stare at the spacious flood plain and shake her head before wiping a few tears away, "It doesn't matter."

Shizuru commented, "You're running through the streets and hiding in an underpass from your friends so you don't have to talk about what happened. It obviously matters."

With lucid liquid splashing from them, Keiko's wide, cocoa eyes met Shizuru's and her voice expelled venom, "He cheated on me. Happy? Yusuke cheated on me."

Botan, Yukina, and Shizuru could only stare at her to begin with, as though unable to process those words mashed in a sentence together. The whimper gave way for a landslide of sobs to slit through the atmosphere. Keiko lowered her head into her hands and emotively wept. The downward angling of the side of the flood plain Keiko was sitting on allowed for Shizuru to kneel eye level with Keiko, "Keiko, are…are you sure?"

"Yeah," Keiko ridiculed, "I broke up with Yusuke, slapped him in the face, told him to get out of my apartment and go back to Gandara, and cry at least three times a day because I'm not sure!"

Shizuru soothed, "Hey, girl, you gotta understand that it's just…it doesn't add up."

"To you," Keiko sniffled as she resigned to a softer tone and looked at the wet spots on the knees of her jeans. "To me it was patently blatant." Keiko whimpered again, urging Botan to rub her back and Yukina sit on the side opposite of the grim reaper to place a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I was sure."

Botan iterated softly, "Why'd you tell him to go to Gandara?"

"Because that's his ancestral kingdom or whatever," Keiko sniffled and wiped her eyes.

"No, that's Yomi's territory," Botan corrected.

Keiko scoffed, "Whatever. The messenger said come back to Gandara so I just assumed." Botan could feel the frustration building from Keiko and backed off. She, Yukina, and Shizuru didn't push Keiko anymore, now realizing how severe the situation between she and Yusuke was. But eventually Keiko placed a hand on her shuddering chest and illuminated, "I knew something was off the first day he came home. He wouldn't have sex with me. _Yusuke_ didn't want to have sex. He said he was hungry and used that excuse about three more times on separate occasions when we would come close to it. Or he would be like 'I have to go to Kurama's' and would run out of the apartment for hours. Or he would act like we weren't about to have sex and he'd casually start a conversation and stop whatever he was doing."

Yukina chimed in to hopefully find an explanation for that odd tidbit of info, "Maybe he's nervous about losing his virginity."

Keiko shook her head, making some tips of her tresses pickle and stick to her jeans, "That's not it."

Shizuru latched onto this explanation, also, not wanting to believe Yusuke was capable of double-crossing Keiko, "But how do you know?"

"Because we lost our virginity to each other a year and a half ago," Keiko sniffled as she locked her eyes onto a washed out pastel collection of graffiti on the flood plain. "Anyway, any time I would ask him questions about Makai he would get mega evasive and got upset this one time when I asked if I was ever going to go there with him. I caught him lying all the time and a messenger came from Makai often and he wouldn't interact with the demon in front of me and they always left the apartment to go to talk. He would run out of the apartment at random times and stay away for hours… The first time I heard about this…" A despairing sniffle escaped Keiko before she continued, "…other girl he didn't know I was outside the door. The messenger said _Ayame_ missed him and he said he didn't want to be away from her any more than she wanted to be away from him. But I couldn't bring myself to accept Yusuke fast talked me so I didn't say anything. But then the messenger kept coming and I decided to figure out what he was doing so I followed them and eavesdropped on them." Keiko paused, giving her time to think about it and sob a few times before continuing with a fractured voice box, "And the messenger kept asking him why didn't he tell me 'the truth' and Yusuke kept saying he would never tell me the truth, that I was the last person he ever wanted to know the truth. He said I was a _dainty_ human and I could never handle the truth."

The women surrounding Keiko exchanged glances before Keiko droned on, "When Yusuke called me that, the messenger said he shouldn't refer to me that way since I was his 'intended.'" Keiko let out a concoction between a scoff and a sob, "And you know what Yusuke said? He said, 'I'm not sure if we'll stay intended. I don't think I can marry her. At least not right now. Not while my heart and mind is elsewhere.' Then he asked how _Ayame_ was and the messenger said she roamed around the fortress asking everybody when he was coming home." Keiko inhaled an overtly shaky breath and closed her eyes, "He said, 'I wish I was there. I want to be there for my little darling spirit but I just have things to put in line here first. Tell her I'll be back before the week is out. And we'll spend as much time together as she wants and do whatever she wants. Tell her I love her and I can't wait to come home.'"

Keiko shrugged her shoulders as her face remained contorted and wilting, "I mean…" A curt ironic laugh left Keiko, "So tell me, what would you think? He found someone in Makai but he just felt obligated to be with me so that's why he comes back. Now I'm starting to wonder just how long he's been seeing her. Maybe it was before he came back when we were 18… He told me that he would fulfill his promise to marry me and when he did he had an odd tone in his voice, as though he was being forced to do something he didn't entirely want to do. That's all I am: a years old commitment that is nothing to him other than liability."

Shizuru sighed and lit a cigarette as she rose to her feet to pace, "Keiko, I just…can't imagine... Do you honestly have a gut feeling that he cheated on you?"

"Yes."

"Were you two still talking by that point?"

"About what?"

"Anything."

"Yeah."

"Did he deny you other intimate behavior, like kissing and cuddling and shit like that?"

"No."

"Was he picking fights with you all the time?"

"That's another thing," Keiko smeared the back of her hand under her nose, "he was having bursts of rage where he would almost transform and his tattoos popped out a few times. He yanked me by the wrist once and Atsuko let him have it. He…just acted weird from the minute he returned to the Ningenkai."

"Well, was he giving you flack about how you look or certain things you do?"

"No."

Shizuru stopped pacing and thoughtfully looked at Keiko, "Did he stop saying he loves you?"

"No."

"I've been cheated on before, Keiko. And all those things are unambiguous signs of a backstabber. But Yusuke wasn't acting how a guy regularly does when he cheats."

Botan interjected, "There's just not a chance, Keiko. Yusuke loves you more than anything. There has to be some explanation."

Keiko stood up and yelped, "He told a Makai messenger to tell another female that he loved her and couldn't wait to get home to her! He called her his 'little darling spirit'! I think the truth kind of smashed my head all over town, Botan!"

"What did he say when you broke up with him?" Yukina softly queried.

"He asked me why I was breaking up with him and I told him he knew why and he had the audacity to say that he didn't! And he just kept stuttering and acting above suspicion! I think he was willing to do anything to get me to make me calm down," Keiko walked down the tilted flood plain rim as she spoke. Keiko stretched out on her back on the flat bottom of the concrete plain beside the canvass of graffiti as she queasily barked, "I mean, he used the word please! He said, 'Keiko, please' like he actually gave a damn."

Yukina, Botan, and Shizuru did a double take when they realized that Keiko had just cursed. It was so extraordinarily uncharacteristic of her, just as lying down at the bottom of a verminous flood plain was, that it only burgeoned their concerns. About this time is when all the inhabitants of the underpass aside from Keiko felt a potent youkai approaching and their necks broke to look at the top of the bridge. They weren't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing to find Kurama making his way over the brim of the flood plain. Kurama didn't speak until his feet left the last step, "I thought I felt your energies. May I ask what…" The redhead noticed Keiko turning from the group, namely him, to settle onto her side with her back towards them with a groan of frustration. "Why is Keiko laying at the bottom of the flood plain?"

Shizuru moved to interrupt Kurama's vision with her back turned towards Keiko as miniscule decibels came from her as she mouthed, "She just told us about her and Yusuke."

One of Kurama's eyebrows shot up, "What are you-" Botan and Yukina made shushing sounds, indicating he was speaking too loudly, and his voice dropped, "talking about?"

Keiko had heard Botan and Yukina's hushing noises and knew that the ensuing silence meant they were talking about her. She bounced to her feet and began walking when she heard Shizuru shout, "Keiko, where are you going?"

Keiko stopped and turned around to harp back, "I'm going to take a walk! I figured it would give you four enough time to finish talking about me without having to whisper!"

As they watched Keiko stomp away from them, Kurama couldn't help but comment, "Well, somebody's feeling aggressive today."

Botan mustered, "Should we have let her leave?"

Shizuru resumed her banter, "Don't worry, she'll have to come back to get her books. Anyway, what I was saying was that she told us about Yusuke and her."

Kurama's head tipped to the side, "In reference to what?"

"Don't you talk to Yusuke regularly?" Botan prodded Kurama's shoulder.

"It's been a couple weeks since I've seen him," Kurama crossed his arms and wore a serious face.

Botan's face crunched in confusion, "He's not in Raizen's territory?"

"No. I assumed where ever he was he was fine and worked it out with Keiko but I am not au fait on his specific location. But he's definitely not in his father's territory or Gandara or Alaric. Which I'm not so sure that's a bad thing considering last time he was in Makai I'm halfway certain that he was about to lose his philanthropic mind," Kurama off-handedly declared.

Shizuru indulged, "Why?"

Kurama shrugged, "From what I can gather, he was losing his sanity because he wanted to come back to Keiko and from what he was dealing with in Alaric, Gan-"

"See?" Botan squealed, "That's not the mindset of a cheater!"

Kurama's head ever so slowly turned to Botan and his face was adorned with bewilderment and incredulousness, "I'm sorry, a what? Did you say cheater?"

"Keiko broke up with Yusuke," Shizuru enlightened. Kurama's chartreuse eyes widened in skepticism as the elder Kuwabara offspring pattered on, "She says he was cheating on her."

Kurama tapped his fingers against the bend of arm, "That's outrageous. I'd like to know when and where this affair took place. Even if Yusuke had the mind to cheat on Keiko, he wouldn't have had the opportunity. He's been much too overworked and too busy pining over her to be with another female."

Shizuru took a drag of her cigarette, "Glad to know we aren't the only ones that think it sounds crazy. Though I have to admit, she did have some compelling evidence. And a name."

Kurama still looked befuddled as he spoke, "I'll forgo the compelling evidence as I'm sure it will be inconsequential since this alleged affair never took place. What was the name Keiko ascertained?"

Yukina hooked her fingers together behind her back as she cheeped, "Ayame."

The girls were thrown when Kurama's arms uncrossed and one of his hands clamped over his forehead and the other settled on his waist, "Wait, _Ayame_? Are you serious?" The hand on his forehead swung down and elevated in front of him, "What could Yusuke have _poss_ibly said about Ayame that made Keiko think he was having an affair with her?"

"That he didn't want to be away from her any more than she wanted to be away from him and he loved her and things of that nature," Shizuru rattled off.

Kurama could not wipe the shocked countenance away as he muttered, "This has been a major misinterpretation."

Botan pushed at Kurama's back, "Then go tell Yusuke! If this was a big mistake, it can be rectified!"

"I can't," Kurama ominously asserted. "I haven't seen Yusuke in about two weeks which I'm going to assume is when this blow up happened. He's not here and he's not in any of the three kingdoms. I have no idea where he is."

"Shit," Shizuru flicked her cigarette to the ground. "Well, go explain to Keiko that it's not what it seems."

"Shizuru," Kurama stated with a straight, cold sober face as his elevated hand reservedly flapped, "you don't understand what this means. When Yusuke left he came to Keiko. He's been here with her since his vanishing act from Makai. But now he's not with her and he's not in any of the three kingdoms. And this would not ordinarily be something to fret over but he's somewhere thinking that Keiko and his mother don't love him anymore, dealing with the ghosts of what's happening in his father's territory and the rest of Makai, and dealing with the incapability to fully control himself without spirit wards."

Botan inserted, "Spirit wards? What in the world does Yusuke need spirit wards for?"

Shizuru butted in, "And what happened with his mom?"

Kurama brushed them off and started powerwalking towards the stairs that straight-laced up to the street, "I have to get Hiei and Mukuro and find Yusuke. In this state, he is a danger to himself and every living being in Makai."

Botan shouted after Kurama, "Wait, Kurama! How do you know he's in Makai?"

Kurama never answered. The triad awaiting Keiko's return was left wishing fox spirit had been less vague about the misunderstanding about Ayame by the time the morose college student returned. Botan was naturally the first to dive into the subject, "Keiko!" She ran up to a puffy-faced Keiko and hooked her hands over her shoulders, "Kurama says this is all a big mix-up and that Yusuke never betrayed you!"

Keiko moved out of Botan's grip to traipse to her books, "Of course he said that; he's Yusuke's friend."

Yukina declared, "He's your friend, too."

Keiko doubled over to pick up her books, "I've never almost died for Kurama; I'd say his loyalty lies more in Yusuke's direction."

Botan hopped to Keiko, "Kurama was extremely shocked when we told him you and Yusuke broke up and why. He said he didn't see how Yusuke could have an affair with somebody else because he's been overworked in Makai and all he's wanted was you." Keiko discounted Botan's claims and meandered towards the stairs in an iron curtain. Botan persisted, "Keiko, did you actually tell Yusuke why? Did you actually tell him we're breaking up because you cheated on me and give him a chance to defend himself?"

"Just leave me alone, Botan!" Keiko shrieked and spun around as her eyes were filling with liquid sunshine. "I had two months worth of correlating indicators, both physical and emotional! This is hard enough without-"

"Keiko!"

Shizuru tackled Keiko after screeching her name just as a missile of energy almost hit the capsized brunette. They skidded onto the concrete and the skin of the back of Keiko's arms and the upper back of her sleeveless, unlined, psychedelic tribal graphic t-shirt was sliced immediately. However, it was an insignificant price considering the dollop of concrete on the angled side of the flood plain that detonated into splinters and hunks that fell around Keiko and Shizuru. The energy blast impacted a few feet away from the fallen humans and it was obvious it was intended for Keiko. Shizuru didn't waste time as she flung herself from the ground, yanking Keiko up and instructing Botan and Yukina to run. Shizuru headed up the dilapidated stairs, fearful the open flood plain would make them sitting targets, and began piloting them in a labyrinth around buildings of the city. Once they had run for a good solid ten minutes, Shizuru halted in an alleyway between a pair of two-storied buildings to lean against a slab wall and clutched her side, "Goddamn t-these smokers' lungs." She looked to her friends and asked, "Everybody ok?"

Keiko heaved and spoke between breaths, "What…was that?"

Yukina looked around, as though expecting the assailants to reappear, and informed, "Definitely apparitions."

Shizuru spoke through inhales, "I gotta feeling that this…has to do with whatever Kurama was talking about that's…happening in Demon World. Botan…what's happening there?"

"Why ask me?" Botan leaned beside Shizuru against the wall. "Memory jog: I no longer work for the Reikai Tentei. It's been a while since I've spoken with Koenma and even if it hadn't, if Yusuke didn't want any of us to know he would've told Koenma to keep his lips sealed."

Yukina discerned as she rubbed sweat from her forehead, "I couldn't see them so I have no idea what type of apparitions they were but it's fairly obvious they were after Keiko."

Shizuru pondered aloud, "Why the hell would they be after Keiko?"

Botan, Yukina, and Shizuru's visions directed towards the sky as Botan claimed, "We'll figure it out later. They're back!"

Shizuru kicked off the wall, "Let's go!"

As they continued to maze through the city, Yukina squealed, "What do we do? You saw how…strong that energy blast was! There's no way we can fight them!"

A broad brainstorm led to Shizuru to only one solution, "No, but I know someone who can! This way!"

Shizuru took an acute left turn and the other women had no choice but to follow. Eight minutes and almost two hits by moving cars later, Shizuru lunged into a building with the words 'Troll's Lair' painted in neon green above the door. Shizuru ushered the others to follow her as she speedily made her way to the back of the comic book and video game store after spinning around to scope out their savior. She flung open the 'Employees (of the Force) Only' door only to get an earful, "Sis, what are you doin' in here? I'm workin'!" To counter Kuwabara's preaching, Shizuru clutched Yukina's wrist and pulled her into the doorway. As expected, Kuwabara's tone changed, "Yukina! I was just about to take a break!" He stepped into the small cutout located in the back corner of the comic book store and locked his arms around the pocket-sized ice demon, lifting her off the ground, "I've missed you! Did you miss me?"

Shizuru rolled her eyes as Yukina's answer brought a red dusting across Kuwabara's face, "Yes, Kazuma, I missed you. But we need help."

Kuwabara peered around Shizuru when he felt Botan's energy and noticed Keiko with a crimson, billowy-eyed face and scrapes on her arms as she was angled away from him. He stepped from behind Yukina, "Keiko, are you ok?"

Yukina saved Keiko from having to answer the goliath man, "Kazuma, there are demons chasing us. They almost hit Keiko and Shizuru with-"

"Where are they?" Kuwabara puffed his chest out, "I'll take care of 'em. Attack a group of defenseless girls, the nerve of these stupid failures."

The moment Kuwabara and Shizuru stepped out of the front door, an apparition was on the ground and Kuwabara's head almost sheathed a sword. Luckily he jumped back and gave a short burst of power to inflame his spirit sword to stab through the demon then retracted his energy. The apparition went way of all flesh as it banged against the pavement. Kuwabara almost said something about his triumph when he caught wind of a hoard of apparitions coming at an extreme velocity towards them from the air and on land. He decided it best to lead them away from the metropolitan vicinity to debar injury to surrounding humans. After all, it was perceptible that these specific demons had no qualm with attacking humans; Keiko being the prime example. As Kuwabara began to race away, Shizuru intervened, "You stupid bastard, what are you doing? They're not after you; they're after Keiko! They aren't going to follow you unless you take her with you!" Shizuru unfastened the door as Kuwabara turned around and she gripped her fingers around Keiko's hand to pull the marred woman onto the street. Keiko was instantaneously handed off to Kuwabara as Shizuru opined, "Go! I'm gonna try and find some back up!"

Kuwabara and Keiko barely caught the last couple of words from Shizuru as their feet grew wings. Keiko found herself stumbling but Kuwabara repeatedly gave support with his hand to keep her on her feet. The daffy fighter looked from his left to his right as they circumvented buildings, fences, and other miscellaneous objects before he spotted an open lot. The parking lot was visibly under construction but Kuwabara identified it as the only place that people did not inhabit. Pulling Keiko through the passageway he could see the lot from, they reached a fence that rose above his head. He glanced at the girl who was running out of steam and coached, "Keiko, climb the fence; we need to get to the lot on the other side."

Keiko mindlessly submitted to Kuwabara's order and embedded the balls of her shoes and her fingers into the chain-link fence. It was not entirely sturdy but Keiko managed to hop the fence in a matter of seconds. Kuwabara quickly followed, although not as gracefully as Keiko, causing him to nearly face plant before careening around then stabilizing his footing. Kuwabara then motioned for Keiko to follow him onto the lot. Not long after, the demons rooting out Keiko approached. Kuwabara flared his youkai to materialize his spirit sword in just enough time to take out a couple infrared-skinned and obsidian-robed demons that were bombarding on the ground. An apparition from the sky discharged a mushroom of energy but Kuwabara, not entirely sure it would work, used his sword as a baseball bat and ricocheted the sphere of youkai back at the demon. Once the amaranthine energy engulfed the demon that floated above them, it wailed before imploding and dropping in gory pieces to the ground. Then Kuwabara began to methodically brandish his sword to X-out the ill-disposed demons as they arrived. However, Keiko and Kuwabara soon realized after twenty odd demons that there were at least twenty more and to make matters worse they began to fully circle them like voracious sharks. Kuwabara cursed to himself before drilling, "Keiko, stay close."

More apparitions ambushed the humans, forcing Kuwabara to return his focus to slaying them. A stab through the head; a stab through the abdomen; a stab through chest- Kuwabara took whatever turn of the cards he had to in order to abrogate the assailing apparitions. Keiko served as the sun in his orbital pattern of rotating in every direction to hold the demons off but in the midst of his defenses, Kuwabara took a fuming Molotov cocktail of energy to the left shoulder. The bell-ringer caused Kuwabara's munitions to be snuffed out, allowing a demon with knife-edged talons to restrict his fingers around Keiko's bicep. As it yanked on Keiko, she reached behind her to anchor her fingers in the back of Kuwabara's shirt, dragging him with her once the demon had nearly pulled her out of reach of him. Kuwabara turned instantly and upon realizing Keiko was being snatched thrust his sword through the demon's esophagus. Keiko was between the two fighters when blood from the demon's throat jetted, sousing onto the side of Keiko's instinctively turned head. Keiko then stood confoundedly when she realized witnessing the spirit sword trenching through flesh had petrified her; she had never been close enough to death that it could shower over her face. This was Yusuke's domain not hers. Within seconds her knees impacted onto the serrated pavement as she gazed at the globules of blood drizzling from her face and tips of her bangs onto her jean-clad thighs. Before long Kuwabara's left collarbone rammed with another blast from the onrushing demons and he lost balance. When he stumbled back he tripped over a kneeling Keiko and splatted onto the ground, knocking Keiko over in the process. By the time Kuwabara got his bearings Keiko had been spirited away. A couple demons had took the advantage of Kuwabara's inability to defend Keiko to hook their grimy fingers around her wrists and soared into the air. Only one thought occupied his mind as Kuwabara watched Keiko being whisked away: _Urameshi's gonna frickin' kill me. _

Without any prior signs, a whirlwind ate the vault of heaven and Kuwabara couldn't stand up properly because of the pressure it created. A figure zoomed through the sky, swiping Keiko from her captors in a gust of levitating speed. Kuwabara could only blink in transitory confusion before the pavement beneath his feet lacquered over in reflective, fluent ice. One by one, the offending demons were picked off as ice shards began penetrating through the weedy but bounteous demons targeting Keiko. In due time, a handful of remaining demons took the closest opportunity to retreat, evanescing into the city scene. After a long-drawn-out sentence of silence Kuwabara began hysterically tossing his head and spinning in place to locate Keiko and their knights errant. The spirit warrior's suspicions were realized when he heard the non-too subtle Irish drawl, "How's the form, ya big lout? Losin' Urameshi's lass's not gonna get ya much of anyw'ere besides the charnel house."

Kuwabara spun on his heel to find the red-haired wind master, "Jin! I knew that was you! What are ya doin' here?"

Toya cut in as he came to stand beside the Irish-accented featherbrain, "Mukuro and Hiei hunted us down last night and said they thought that," the ice demon pointed at Keiko still arrested in Jin's arms, "she would be a target for the rebels after Yusuke showed up and started going ape-shit violent on them in the badlands of Makai."

Keiko almost inquired for Toya to elaborate but her efforts were shut down as another tenacious accent graced their ears, "Oi! Ya blokes think it's a'ight to just leave me stumblin' 'round the city, yeah?"

Jin set Keiko on the ground as a dilated grin ornamented his mouth, "Cop on, Chu. If ya weren't so langered without missin' the mark ya could be more useful!"

Chu slurred as he pointed at Jin, "Oh, keep your thoughts on a rope, ya dag! I'm in picture-perfect condition! So end your earbashin' before I give you a wallop!"

Jin laughed at Chu's threat, "I am in me wick!"

"Alright, you two, control yourselves," Toya rolled his eyes as his arms came to cross.

"He bloody started it!" Chu snidely commented with a red face.

"It doesn't really matter who started it," Toya brushed Chu's accusations off, "just shut up. Anyway, Mukuro asked if we would come to the Ningenkai and lay low for a couple weeks to superintend for rebel demons. She told us that Yusuke and she discussed it earlier and they were afraid apparitions after Yusuke would come after his most beloved."

Keiko was again cut off by a foreign intonation as her protests were about to flow, "Looks like that narkie Mukuro was too right!" Chu nodded his head in acknowledgment towards Keiko, "Targeted this Sheila right off the bat! Good thing we were hiding in the big smoke or she and Urameshi wouldn't get to have a naughty again!"

Keiko took a gamble on what Chu's innuendo meant and a cherry dusting sifted over her face in bashfulness as Jin chuckled, "Sing it!"

Toya overpassed Jin and Chu's lampooning as he spoke to the blushing girl, "You need to come with us. We'll take you to Raizen's territory and get you to Yusuke."

"No, thanks," Keiko rotated and began walking away from the group of fighters, "I'll take my chances here."

"Wait, Keiko!" Kuwabara squawked and trailed after the dismissive student, "Don't you want to go to Urameshi? He could protect ya a jillion times better than any of us can and you two can be together!"

Keiko reiterated herself, "No, thanks."

Kuwabara had a nagging edgy feeling, prompting him to clutch Keiko's bicep, "What's going on?"

Keiko had already divulged her plight once that day and she wasn't willing to do it again, especially with Yusuke's best friend, so she hitched eyes with Kuwabara's teal ones, "Well, Kuwabara…there's countless solar systems with hundreds of planets surrounded by millions of stars made up of billions of molecules constructed out of trillions of atoms. And not all of them revolve around Yusuke. So don't assume that I have to either."

"Keiko…" Kuwabara's eyes widened in loss of clarity, "why don't you want to go to Urameshi?"

"I'm going home," Keiko yanked her arm out of Kuwabara's grip and whipped around to leave only to stop short in front of Shizuru.

"You're going to Yusuke, Keiko," Shizuru decisively stated.

Keiko's eyes narrowed at the taller woman, "You're not my authority, Shizuru."

Botan chiseled in as she stepped from behind Shizuru, "We never said any of us were your authority, Keiko, but you will be safer with Yusuke and you two need to talk."

Keiko asserted as her hands came to rest on her hips, "I will go kicking and screaming and once I'm there someone will have to watch me every second because the moment I see the opportunity to leave, I will take it."

"Apologies, yobbo," Chu huffed as she traipsed behind Keiko, inciting her turn to look at him, "but our actions are open slathers now and I gotta say I think the Sheilas have'a score."

Toya was torn between the course of actions Jin, Chu, and he could take to insure Keiko's safety as the elephantine demon with the blue Mohawk lobbed the protesting woman over his shoulder. Jin confirmed with a nod, "And the rest! Sure it's a gammy twist but Urameshi will make us scarce as hen's teeth if we let another holy show like that happen! Besides, we don't got much more time to decide what t'do; this motherless muppet is ready to get buckled, eh, Chu?"

"Already there, mate," Chu hiccupped as he began wandering away from the lot with Keiko hauled over his shoulder.

Keiko waged war as she began kicking her legs, "Put me down this instant, you inebriated idiot!"

As Keiko carried on with her verbal assault Jin elbowed Botan, "Ferry lass, what's with Urameshi's mot? Looks like he did something arseways!"

Kuwabara intervened, "Yeah, what's happenin'? I've never seen Keiko so against going to be with that jerk…"

Yukina's mint-green hair uplifted against wind Jin was beginning to summon as she edified, "Keiko split up with Yusuke. She says he sold her down the river and cheated on her."

Kuwabara's shoulders slumped and his eyebrows knitted in repudiation, "…Huh?" When the girls didn't throw light upon the situation, Kuwabara's pique was ignited as he de-materialized his spirit sword and ran like a scared rabbit towards Chu and Keiko. "Hey, Chu! Chu, ya bastard! Put her down for a second!" Chu spasmodically pirouetted towards the goofball human and flipped Keiko onto her feet, quickly twisting his mammoth hand into the back of her tank top to assure her immobility. Kuwabara bellowed, "Keiko, I could understand you breakin' up with Urameshi because of his absences or neglect or any of the other things he does in relation to you he should do better but ya can't seriously think he'd be with another girl! That's just mental!" Keiko only stared at Kuwabara as her nostrils contracted repeatedly and her fingers fisted. He took a step closer, "Keiko, no! There's no way! Urameshi might be a lot of things but he's not a cheater! He would never-"

Keiko ruptured like napalm, "I didn't invite you into my and Yusuke's relationship, Kuwabara! So I'd appreciate it if you kept your opinions to yourself! Just because you would never even think about being with another girl while you're hooked on Yukina doesn't mean no guy would ever try to be with two people at the same time!"

"I'm not sayin' that! I'm sayin' Urameshi's not one of those guys!"

Keiko looked over her shoulder at Chu, "Oh, just kidnap me already."

Chu heaved Keiko over his shoulder once more and drunkenly commented as she sighed, "A'ight, Sheila, off we go. That ankle-biter Rinku is prob'ly still waitin' at the border for Windy, Icy, and yours truly."

As Jin took wing on an influx of wind and Toya stalked after Chu and his captive, Shizuru, Botan, and Yukina hiked to Kuwabara's locale only to be met by his saturnine voice, "How can Keiko think Urameshi was with another girl?"

Yukina touched a hand on Kuwabara's forearm and confided, "To be fair, she did have reasons that would have led mostly anyone to that conclusion."

"Even if there were reasons that would indicate that, she should know better than to buy into them," Kuwabara huffed in defense of his best friend. "He might be selfish and careless but he ain't a double-crosser. He's one of the most loyal assholes I know if not the most period."

Botan nodded, "We know, Kuwabara, and that's why when we saw that she was safe with you, Jin, Toya, and Chu that we decided we would force her to go to see him."

"Man, I'd hate to be at that reunion."

As Chu lugged a floundering Keiko over his shoulder, Toya marched behind them and couldn't help from remarking, "We should warn you, Yusuke is not himself at the moment."

Keiko gibed as she attempted to push her flouncing hair from her face, "Yeah, well, he isn't exactly known for habitualness."

"I meant he is totally lawless at this point in time," Toya insisted as his arms crossed. "In fact, let's go with homicidal, cutthroat maniac."

Keiko's brows knitted as she unevenly probed, "Why?"

"Because you martyrized the Seven Seas of love between the two of you."

"Yusuke betrayed me."

Toya's eyebrow arched, "No, but you mutilated whatever human heart was left in him."

The trio of demons and single human eventually trekked the remainder of the trip to Demon World in extensive silence except the occasional curt conversation between Toya and Jin. Keiko felt like she had been tossed over Chu's shoulder for days by the time they approached Raizen's territory. Throughout the entire course, demons leered or prowled around them but a flash of one of the three apparitions' immense youkai held off confrontation. Keiko was mentally and physiologically burnt out upon arrival to the one of the three former kingdoms of Makai. She observed the lithic plains and parched soil with engrossment and in question of where Yusuke now indefinitely resided since she had never seen it. Much to her relief, after only a few minutes upon arrival, Chu swung her until her feet kissed the earth causing her vision to spin momentarily at the new upright position as opposed to the odd near upside down one she had been in for hours. Keiko was swiftly met with a bald man donning gray-blue robes and a gray vest embellished with triangular designs, "Who's this?"

Before Keiko could respond Toya confirmed, "This is Keiko."

The man slightly bowed his head, "Ah… So you're Keiko. I'm Hokushin."

Keiko wrapped her arms around herself and admonished herself because she went against her own words to fight to leave, "Where's Yusuke?"

"We're in the process of trying to get him to return to the kingdom." Hokushin motioned with his hand for her to follow him, "Come, I'll escort you to his chamber."

Keiko scornfully commentated, "Are you sure someone's not already in there?"

Hokushin nodded in befuddlement, "Yes. You'd be the only one in there."

Keiko was too sucked dry to challenge Hokushin and rubbed her still puffy eyes, "Whatever, just lead me there. I need to lie down."

On the trail to Yusuke's chamber, Hokushin informed, "If you hear any strange noises, just yell and we'll be up straightaway." Keiko traced her fingers over the cuts on the back of her arms as she refrained from responding and merely tried to make sense of this warning. As they reached the couloir that was adjoined to a set of stairs, Hokushin came to a halt and motioned towards the stairs, "These stairs lead to his chamber and you can wait there until we bait him back."

Keiko tucked tresses behind her ear as she scampered towards the stairs in hopes to find a bed of some sort, "Alright."

As the day lost its luster and night outstripped the sky, Keiko found a 252 centimeter, king size round bed layered in slate covers located in Yusuke's chamber to be the embryo of comfort she sought. She plumbed into the bed to lay flat on her stomach with her arms on either side of her and her fingers entrenched into the cover that smelt like Yusuke. Though it was unintentional, Keiko fell into the sandman's limbo despite the burning that still sprinkled over the scrapes on the back of her arms. Sometime in the witching hour, she was awakened by an amalgamation of shouting and clanging from beneath Yusuke's chamber. The yells were too muffled to actually make out what was being said but in due time footfalls were banging closer, indicating someone coming up the stairs. Keiko pushed herself onto her knees and scrabbled off the bed and wildly looked for a hiding place, unsure if the approaching being came in good nature. The chamber was spacious but basically uninhabited by any furniture other than the bed which allowed for little to no hiding spots. So she settled for backing into the corner adjacent to the corridor leading to the stairs in order to make sure she wasn't seen immediately and could figure out who the mystery person was. To her large-scale relief and discontent, Yusuke entered the room with a brash call, "Keiko!"

He was unorthodox. Barbaric, elongated charcoal hair with swathes of alabaster cascaded over his shirtless back and he was enshrouded with incisions, tattoos, and blood- most likely a mixture between his and others'. His knuckles were torn open as though they underwent dissection in a lab. His tattooed shoulders were hunched forward and a bizarre tameless stance made Keiko shudder in anxiety of his possible mindset. Her hands pressed mightily against the wall behind her but the movement caught Yusuke's deranged glare. His brown irises were crimped around ruby ribbon-like streaks, she noted as he strode to her. Once Yusuke was directly in front of Keiko, he spanked his hands on either side of her against the wall supporting her, pinning her to a fearful stiffness at his harsh action. She refuted as she daringly gazed into his eyes, "Why did you have me abducted, Yusuke?"

"I didn't," Yusuke gnarled as a sneer shot over his blood-soaked lips. "Trust that I don't want you here."

Keiko's eyes contracted and she gave a shove with both of her hands to his chest, "Then I'm leaving!"

Yusuke's fingers enclosed Keiko's forearms as his pronged nails scratched her skin then a deeper version of his voice crowed, "No, you're staying right fucking here."

Keiko pushed against him again, "You know, Yusuke, you're a bundle of nerves! I don't understand you at all anymore!"

Yusuke glowered lowly, "Yeah, 'cause you make so much more sense than me. You're a walking emotional hurricane for Christ's sake!"

"I'm only as erratic as you make me be!"

"Then I must be some fucked up catalyst to make you act the way you are! You're fuckin' psychotic!"

"Says the man eclipsed in blood! You're a lunatic!"

"Are not!"

"Are, too!"

"Are not!"

"Are, too!"

When Yusuke resigned to silence, she rushed from his pinning state to race to the exit but he managed another grip on one of her forearms to pull her until she was magnetized against him, "I'm only as crazy as you make me be, Keiko."

Keiko countered with a discomforted tone, "Why is blood all over you?"

"I went hunting," Yusuke somewhat ironically replied.

Keiko couldn't resist as her hands lined his face, "What has happened to you, Yusuke?"

Yusuke blandly looked into her opaque eyes and turned the tables, "Why are _you_ covered in blood?"

"Kuwabara stabbed a demon trying to take me captive with his spirit sword. I was in between him and the demon and it was just an unfortunate series of events," Keiko relinquished her slight touch on Yusuke's face, scolding herself for touching him whatsoever.

Keiko swore she heard Yusuke's teeth grind together before he glowered, "Demons attacked you in the Ningenkai?"

"That's why Chu, Jin, and Toya brought me here. They thought I'd be safer with you," Keiko paused mildly before finishing, "of course it doesn't look like you're in your healthy mind."

Yusuke thoroughly avoided furthering the subject as he stated, "I'm going to get something to wash this shit off of us. Stay here."

Even though Keiko's mind told her to leave the moment he did, her innermost heart could not permit an exodus without figuring out if Yusuke was alright or would at least be alright in the future. She wanted to put a bullet through her innermost heart for this hindrance. Alas she waited on Yusuke's return with twill towels and a concavity of water and even allowed him to cleanse the blood from her face as she could not see the damage. However, when he let the cloth slip from his fingers in exchange to caress her jawline Keiko hopped backwards, "Don't touch me, Yusuke!"

When Keiko attempted to circumvent Yusuke to get out of his chamber, he locked his hands on her hips to cease her motions, "Why'd you tear my fucking heart out, Keiko?"

"Let me cut your hair."


	4. You Should Learn How to Say No

**FGM** (you will understand what this acronym stands for postliminary this chapter) is a real social problem that exists in our non-fictional world. I did not randomly make this subject up- learned it in a social problem class. Also, the fucked up storyline (cellar part) is derived from how mental patients were treated in asylums in the 1800s- something horrific I learned from a social welfare policy history class.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. I do not own the manga/anime characters, plots, or creation.

**Miles and Miles of Regret**

**by TheKennethAnger**

Chapter 4: You Should Learn How to Say No

The few hours of shuteye she had obtained allowed her to stay wired. By the time Keiko succeeded in cutting Yusuke's hair to its characteristic length, his tattoos had faded and daybreak was nearing. The horizon was illuminated in a lavender irradiation as Keiko stepped away from Yusuke to stand in front of the opening that linked to the terrace.

_Keiko, did you actually tell Yusuke why?_

"You should look up the meaning of no."

Yusuke sounded like he was a child at six and sevens when he muttered, "What?"

In vexation, Keiko twirled to peer at Yusuke and yipped, "I hope she was worth it, Yusuke!"

Yusuke scrunched his fingers into his un-styled, freshly cut hair, "She, who? What are you talkin' about, Keiko?"

Keiko felt a building compression behind her eyes when she demanded, "Why would you never let me come here with you?"

Yusuke stalked to Keiko's location and stood toe-to-toe with her, "'Cause something's happenin' that I never wanted you to know about."

Keiko stormily yanked the midsection of the white cotton shirt Yusuke had put on a mere hour earlier, "Please do elaborate!"

"What is your deal?" Yusuke caught Keiko's hand as she withdrew it, "You need to calm the fuck down."

Keiko tried to retract her hand but Yusuke rendered it static as he added his other hand to hold hers, "Don't tell me to calm down!"

"What is goin' on in your head?"

Keiko used the base of her wrist and the bottom of her palm to collide against Yusuke's chest out of twenty-four carat heartbreak, "Why would you never let me come here with you?"

Yusuke heatedly responded as he tactfully took steps forward to incite her to take steps back, "'Cause you don't need to be here!"

Keiko continued wailing after Yusuke arduously backed her against the doorway that conjoined to the terrace, "Because you're hiding something!"

"Look-"

"Or rather someone!"

Yusuke's face dipped to only a couple millimeters from her face and he rumbled, "What?"

Keiko raged, "I _know_ about her, Yusuke!"

Yusuke roared back, "What are you talkin' about?"

Keiko amusedly yet maliciously laughed, "Just admit it!"

"Admit _w_hat?"

Keiko's passion spilled like vomit from her mouth as she propelled Yusuke back with a shove so she could step away from the dreg wall, "That you're screwing someone!"

"What. The. Hell. Are you talking about?" Yusuke bitterly screwed his fingers into Keiko's bare shoulder and the tank top covering her ribcage, "What the _hell_ are you talkin' about?"

"Maybe I should rephrase to better fit your sentiments! Admit you're screwing _and in love with_ someone!" Keiko put a lock on her tears in insistence to be tenacious, "I'm sure she's a real Venus dreamboat!"

Yusuke essentially used his body as a net to trap her against the wall again as his face hovered precisely in front of hers as he roared, "Who told you that?"

"I bet she's so obliged to be with _royalty_," Keiko grieved as she positioned her hands on Yusuke's shoulders to keep him from pressing harder against her.

Yusuke gripped her tank top tighter and the hand on her shoulder slid to become a support beam resting on the wall behind her head, "You better tell me who fuckin' told you that, goddammit!"

Keiko blazingly barked, "Why?"

Yusuke slapped his hand beside her head, "Because I'm gonna rip their tongues out!"

Keiko curtly gave a wordless scream in frustration before revealing, "I _heard_ you talking about her, you idiot!"

"Fuck, Keiko!" Yusuke tipped his nose close to hers challengingly, "There's no other girl and there never has been! How could you even ask me that? How could you even think that?"

"You know, Yusuke, you have-"

Yusuke implanted his fingertips against Keiko's neck as he proclaimed, "Whatever I said that put that in your mind was totally misunderstood! How long have you been thinkin' this? Is this why you broke up with me?"

Her emotions were near breaking like a flood tide when she lamented, "Why else would I break up with you?"

Yusuke cupped Keiko's cheekbone with one hand and the back of her neck with the other, "I just…I thought you just didn't love me anymore or that you just couldn't handle all the shit that comes from being with me." Keiko aimed to move out of his reach but he pressurized her body more firmly to the wall with his, "I actually cried that day in your apartment."

Keiko blinked in nihilism, "Why?"

"Because I love you with every vein in my body and they closed off when you told me that you never wanted to see my face again." Yusuke scolded, "God, Keiko, how the fuck can you even think there's someone else? Absolutely not. _Never_. I just-"

"Who's Ayame?"

Yusuke's eye contact tensed in accusation, "You heard my conversations; you were spying on me, weren't you?" He paused with a deep breath before continuing, "How can you _honestly_ think just because I mention a girl's name that means I'm cheating on you?"

Keiko squirmed backwards, again giving the old college try to escape, "You said you didn't want to be away from her any more than she wanted to be away from you and that you love her and you called her your little darling spirit!"

Yusuke moved his arms to encircle Keiko's waist when he noticed that she was still trying to wiggle away from him, "She's a child, Keiko! She's a little girl! She's like three years old in human years! I rescued her and she just became attached to me or whatever because she's staying in the fortress 'cause she has nowhere else to go! She's the size of a stuffed animal! And to be honest, I kinda got attached to her, too, so I refer to her as my little darling spirit sometimes and I said I love 'er because I feel like she's, I don't know, an adopted daughter or something!"

Keiko bemoaned, "Why'd you say you could never tell me the truth then?"

"Because the truth about why I came home…" Yusuke fleetingly looked to the side, "is too dark and I never wanted to take you to that place."

Keiko gazed into his cinnamon eyes, lightly distracted by the olive and bluish red contusion around his right eye, "Why'd you call me a dainty human that couldn't handle the truth?"

"Same reason. When I said the truth I was referring to what's happening in Makai, not another girl. And I was reminding Tsuneo that you are a human and you're not used to the horrors of Makai. And that I wanted to shield you from what I thought would be too much for you," Yusuke cooed as he witnessed the combativeness abandoning her harsh stare.

"You said you weren't sure if you could marry me because your heart and mind were somewhere else," Keiko recalled the words written on stone in her mind.

"What I've been dealing with the past year has taken a major piss on my heart and mind, Keiko," Yusuke sighed and touched his forehead to Keiko's while maintaining their battling eye contact. "I'm not in the best shape to be married to right now."

Keiko went over Yusuke's eyes with a fine-tooth comb inspection, "You didn't seem to care about me anymore…"

Yusuke disconnected their foreheads to draw her turned face against his shoulder, "I _love_ you, Keiko. Of course I care about you. There's _nobody_ I care _more_ about than you."

Keiko closed her eyes against his neck, "If that's true why didn't you want me to come here with you?"

Yusuke adjusted his hand to cradle the back of Keiko's skull, "I don't want you to get hurt."

"I won't get-"

Yusuke entombed his nose in Keiko's tethered, silken hair, "Keiko, my territory, Alaric, and especially Gandara at the moment, and the rest of Makai for that matter, are in chaos, ok? I've been staying in Gandara for a long ass time, in fact. If I let you out of my sight for a second, something could happen to you."

"I will be fine," Keiko reposted intrepidly.

"God, Keiko, listen to me." Yusuke's fingers curled against her scalp, "I don't want you here because it's dangerous."

Keiko inhaled, "What exactly do you think will happen if I stay?"

"There are these rebels running around causing anarchy right now. They're the ones that attacked you in the Ningenkai. And here…" Yusuke cocked his head back in order to draw Keiko's pupils to his, "You're a human, Keiko. A human female. If you were to get taken captive by any of the rebels, they will… they will…hold you down and take a knife or a razor blade or a piece of glass or anything else that's sharp…and they will remove part, if not all, of your clitoris. There's an epidemic of female genital mutilation happening right now in Makai. Then they follow up the mutilation with a series of third degree torture. They see a human female who has less youkai than an infant demon…you _will_ become a target. I will _never_ risk you getting hurt or raped or tortured. You understand?"

Keiko impressed her fingers into Yusuke's shoulder blades, "Why aren't you stopping them?"

"I'm trying. I have been for the past year," Yusuke exhaustedly granted.

Keiko became mousey in her inspection, "That's why you left?"

"I only thought I'd be gone a few days when I heard a series of violence broke out in Raizen's territory. I was thinkin', I'll go there, kick some ass, and come home. But no matter how many of the bastards I kill, there's more. Then Hokushin told me the people of this territory started finding all kinds of tortured girls in cellars and attics. I couldn't just leave. This is, even if I didn't ask for it to be, my territory that this was happening in and I couldn't leave with that still going on. And I especially couldn't after the rebels started wrecking up other parts of Makai, even Mukuro and Yomi's territories and the places Enki blocked off in the name of preservation. I mean…" Yusuke unbound Keiko and he backed away to lean on the opposite wall of the doorway that she inhabited, "you don't know how bad I wanted to come back to you. But I couldn't. Especially after an incident with Isami- an obake on my counsel or whatever- happened."

Keiko crossed her arms and imitated Yusuke's leaning position on the opposite wall, "What happened?"

"So one day, me and Hokushin call for Isami to help with something and he wasn't there and nobody could find him. After a while, he showed up and was acting normal so we didn't think much about it. The next day, Seitei comes running up and tells me that they found a human girl in the cellar of a mausoleum. She had been mutilated, raped, burned, cut into…she was on the verge of dying. They asked her how she got to Makai and you know what she said?" Yusuke mildly rolled his eyes, "Apparently, Isami had been sneaking to the Ningenkai periodically to take human lovers and nobody knew about it. And when he had come back the day before, she, God only knows why, followed him and accidentally crossed."

Keiko expression was adorned in horrification, "Is she ok?"

Yusuke looked away to scrutinize the view of the petrous sight from the terrace, "She's dead. While demons can get injuries like that and live, humans can't." A few moments of silence ensued before Yusuke could force himself to face Keiko again, "Do you understand now? You can't stay in Makai, Keiko. I can't ever let that happen to you."

Keiko's head tilted as she inquired, "So why did that stop you from coming to me? At least every once in a while you could have come for a few minutes to let me know you were ok."

"The rebels had been tracking me. They were and are out to kill me or take me captive or something," Yusuke breezily shrugged. "Not that there's anybody that can tell me what they think they'll do if they get me. But I assumed they didn't care to break the Makai laws of remaining in demon world so I was afraid they'd follow me. And I would have led them straight to you or my mom."

One of Keiko's hands waved sparsely in the air, "But if they didn't have a history of coming to the Ningenkai then-"

"They did."

"They did?'

Yusuke nodded and illustrated, "They had been snatching girls who came within a five mile radius of the barrier. They'd send their weakest demons to capture them and drag them to Makai without detection. I don't know why. To prove a point, I guess."

Keiko gathered the fabric of the bottom front of her shirt into a lump in her hands, "Did they all die?"

Yusuke internally battled whether to go into the details of the chillers he witnessed. But he decided to prevent any more incertitude as he eventually murmured, "All but one. I got a message from a guy who said he suspected that his neighbors were rebels and confining girls because there had been all sorts of strange behavior happening at night and he would hear noises that sounded like muffled screams.

"So I got pissed and stormed over to this east Jesus nowhere back country and I kicked in the front door to their pigsty and they…were mutilating a girl. It was Ayame. She was a damn child. Not just by demon years standards either, Keiko; she was a _child_. One of the rebels chanting somethin' was the last thing I remember before I completely blacked out. Next thing I remember was my hands covered in blood and the bastards were gutted. To top it off, one of the rebels was a woman. How fucked is that? Anyway, I remember wiping the blood onto my pants before I went to Ayame. She was bleeding and crying and screaming and I just picked her up and told her everything was gonna be ok and I told her who I was…" Yusuke bit his lip and shook his head before divulging, "After a few minutes she started wailing that there were other girls in the house. That's when Hokushin, Seitei, Isami, and Touou came in and I tried to hand Ayame to Seitei but she wouldn't let go of me. So I carried her around while we checked out the rest of the house, which had a million damn doors. We found four other demon girls in the attic and another two chained up in a bedroom. We thought we had checked the whole house but Ayame told me I missed two other girls."

Yusuke motioned towards the floor as though he were in the farmland house where his story had taken place, "She said they were in the cellar. So I looked around but I couldn't find a door. Then I heard a noise beneath my feet that sounded like a scream. I couldn't even think straight and I literally jammed my foot through some of the floorboards and the screaming got louder and there was this…horrible smell. So I called out to the girls and asked them if they could move towards me and I'd kick the floor in enough to lift them up but one of the girls said she could move but the other couldn't. Then she told me the entrance to the cellar was behind the house. So I went back there and found old school cellar doors with chains on them and broke 'em off and pulled back the doors and one of the girls came running up the staircase and the smell…it was so awful. She didn't have clothes on and she was disfigured and really skinny and I called to Hokushin and he took off his outer robe thing and put it around her and she was crying that there was another girl in there but she couldn't move. A human girl."

Yusuke could no longer preserve eye contact as he mumbled, "I was holding Ayame and she finally let go and went to the one of the girls that had followed me from the front of the house and I held my breath and went in. It was a pretty big cellar but even after I checked the whole thing twice, I couldn't find another girl. Then I heard screaming from the stairs. I thought it was one of the girls outside the cellar but then I realized that Hokushin and the others had led them away from the entrance. So I went back towards the stairs and I noticed something copper on the side of the staircase. When I got to it, it was a doorknob and had chains across the width of the door that connected to the concrete of the wall and the side of the stairs. There was a closet underneath the stairs. So I busted it open. And…"

When Yusuke sewed his lips shut and turned his head to stare outside, Keiko padded to him to perch her hands on his sinewy shoulders, "And what?"

Yusuke rotated his head to bring her back into his field of vision, "I shouldn't tell you this, Keiko."

Keiko folded her arm around Yusuke's neck and cradled the back of his head with her free hand to impel her forehead against his, "And what, Yusuke?"

"She was basically a skeleton and had been…just…imagine what I had told you about the conditions of other girls and multiply it by about a hundred." Yusuke offered a feather touch to Keiko's elbow, "I would prefer not to go into detail. I don't care how much you say you can handle it, I don't want ya to. But I could tell immediately she was human. And she didn't know who I was and just assumed I was there to…hurt her. It took me over a good hour to make her believe I was going to take her to safety."

Keiko earnestly appealed, "And she did survive?"

Yusuke presented a half-smile as he submitted to his force of will and raveled his arms around Keiko, "Yeah. Hiei came and blanked her memory after she started to get better physically and I got Kurama to make sure she got home."

Keiko rose the question, "Have Hiei and Kurama been helping you the whole time?"

Yusuke's halved smile remained, "Yes. And, believe it or not, the person helping me out more than anyone is Mukuro."

Keiko mouth twitched, "Why?"

Yusuke implored as he straightened away from the wall, "I think it's cause the rebels have been trying to kill her, too. And Yomi for that matter. I think I was the original target because they thought I was the weakest. But after a few months of not being able to kill me or capture me or whatever, Mukuro and Yomi started to be attacked. Even Enki has had a couple run-ins with these assholes."

"Oh," Keiko wore a dispirited countenance as her tone was reserved, unsure of what to say.

"Yeah." Yusuke implored as he untwined his arms from around her to step back and stand close to the loam railing of the terrace, effectively turning his back to her, "But please tell me this makes you understand that I can't let you stay here. I don't know what I would do if something were to happen to you. My blood is burning just thinkin' about it."

Keiko relocated to stand beside Yusuke on the terrace but could only visually focus on him, "Why did you black out?"

Yusuke vaguely looked to her before returning his fixed stare back to the terrestrial sphere, "Huh?"

"You said that when you found Ayame in that house and you disposed of those demons that you blacked out," Keiko recalled as she crossed her arms once more.

Yusuke conceded, "I did."

"Why?"

"Not sure. All I know is I transformed- tattoos, the hair, the whole works. That happened after about three weeks of being back in Makai and the times after that-"

Keiko prospected, "What do you mean by the times?"

"My transformations. They kept coming and I was more and more losing control over myself when I would find rebels and especially if I saw the conditions of the girls. By the fifth month in, hours would pass that I would black out and be totally unaware of anything that happened. Kurama and Hiei said that I would use stuff like ice powers that I'd never used before and I would bite a lot. We still don't know what I'm being possessed by but whatever it is, it isn't Mazoku. It isn't Raizen. So they tried to instruct me how to control myself but the lessons just weren't sticking. Then…" Yusuke shook his head and exhaled through his nasal cavities, "the second week of the sixth month, I apparently, I don't remember it, attacked one of the captive girls. One of the rebels was holding her in front of him to keep us from attacking but I did it anyway and almost killed her with my fucking teeth. And that's when I knew that if I was going to fix this, I'd have to get those switch overs under control. So Kurama and Hiei snuck Koenma into Makai, in the outskirts of Mukuro's territory, and he began putting spirit wards over me. And even though they were working and helped control my demon youkai, I would occasionally still black out. But only for a few seconds and only if I was super pissed off."

Yusuke was somewhat un-alert as Keiko glissaded her arms around him in a backwards embrace and settled her profile against his spine, "That's why you've been going to Kurama's all the time, isn't it? Koenma's been there putting spirit wards over you since you've been home, hasn't he? And that's why your tattoos popped out and you punched that tree when you were beyond anger with Atsuko and Yuudai- you were about to black out."

Yusuke felt tranquilized by Keiko's touch as he clamped a hand over one of the forearms encircling him, "Yeah. But I…Keiko…I was at my limits. I couldn't handle seeing that shit every day. And then I started getting paranoid and thinkin' that if they could get to that girl that was under the staircase in the cellar, they could get to you. So I snuck away to Alaric, killed a few rebels along the way, and literally went underground to century old tunnels under Makai that Kurama told me about to get to the portal without anyone knowing I was leavin'. I didn't want to even chance them following me to you but I couldn't stop myself from comin' cause my paranoia got the better of me and I started having nightmares that somehow they found out who you were from other demons that had been at the Dark Tournament. And I was right. Look what happened…" Yusuke lazily clenched and unclenched his free hand due to an itch that sprouted over his sliced knuckles, "I love you and I had to come back to protect you."

"Yusuke?"

"Yeah?"

"I know you'll always protect me."

Keiko loosened her hold on him and twined her hand into the back of his white cotton crew neck t-shirt, encouraging him to orbit towards her. Keiko unsnarled her hand from the back of Yusuke's shirt and cradled her hands around the hinges of his jaw as she rocked to her tiptoes and cinched her lips to his. Sooner or later, Yusuke reciprocated and pulped his lips against hers and situated his hands over both of her ribcages. Yusuke was reviling himself, fighting to pull away from her but his rationale went vacant when Keiko's fingers crawled under the trimming of his shirt and her fingernails dug into the skin at the front hem of his jeans. Despite Yusuke meaning to convince his heart and body to pull away, his undomesticated sixth sense materialized as he instinctually backed Keiko against the wall they had formerly propped against. Yusuke pillaged Keiko's mouth as he pinioned her immobile for the second time in less than an hour. Just as Keiko was reveling in her conquest, she repeated a mistake. She didn't even consider his past reactions when her hips grinded against Yusuke's. His eyelids kick started and he pulled away from Keiko, backtracking a few steps.

Keiko inelegantly stared at Yusuke before pacing back onto the balcony. Her back was turned to Yusuke when she uttered noiselessly, "Why don't you want to have sex with me?"

Yusuke marched to Keiko to stand behind her as his hands stretched to either side of her and clasped the rail of the balcony, unintentionally boxing her in, "When the hell have I ever given you the idea I don't want to have sex with you?"

"Ever since you had come to my apartment, you're always making up excuses or pulling away when we come close to it," Keiko justified as she turned to face him with irresolute eyes.

Yusuke thoughtfully looked upwards before linking their eyes, "That's another reason you thought I was cheating on you, wasn't it?"

Keiko shyly indulged, "I thought you were sneaking away to Makai when you would stay out for hours at a time and had some demon that was prettier than me so you-"

Yusuke rolled his eyes exasperatedly, "Ugh, don't be stupid, Keiko. Nobody's prettier than you."

"Thank you, Yusuke…" Keiko scantily shook her head, "but if that's true why don't you-"

Yusuke offered a filtered chuckle with a half-cocked grin, "Trust me, Keiko, I _definitely want_ to make love to you- like all the time- as in round the clock, night and day, at all hours. I'm just…"

Keiko's eyebrows scarcely lifted as Yusuke's expression instantly lost its mirth, "Just what?"

"Afraid I'll lose control over myself," Yusuke spoke softly.

"I'm not afraid of your demon blood, Yusuke," Keiko proclaimed as she attempted to condense her lips to his once again.

However, Yusuke slanted his neck back to prohibit a kiss, "But I am."

"You weren't afraid of it a year ago." She inspected her shoes as she modestly disclosed, "You made love to me every other day for months after you came back when we were 18."

Yusuke leaked a sigh as he laced his profile on the top of her downwardly-angled head, "That was before I started having black outs and before I had thoughts that I could hurt you just as badly as those bastards hurt all those girls."

"Don't compare yourself to men that commit female genital mutilation or rape and torture. I should smack you for being so dumb. I know you'd never hurt me like that. Your tattoos have appeared while you've been inside of me enough times for me to know you won't hurt me." Keiko brushed her fingertips over Yusuke's jaw to draw his lips against hers, "Even if they hadn't appeared in the past, I know that as long as it's anything going through the filter of your body, I won't be harmed. Don't let the cruel actions of others rule our relationship, Yusuke."

"Fine, but don't let speculation rule it either." Yusuke swept his lips over Keiko's as he pledged, "I will never betray you, Keiko. I've never wanted anybody but you."

"Same here, tiger," Keiko muddled before managing to singe her lips to Yusuke's in a white-hot lip lock. Before long, the couple coiled around each other as he scooped both of her legs to his right hip with his left arm encircling her mid back while their lips gamboled with one another's. Yusuke sauntered across the room and instilled Keiko onto the ledge of his bed to sit upright with her feet on the floor. He quickly kneeled at her feet before scrunching Keiko's brunette tresses behind her shoulders. Unexpectedly, their next conflagrant, generative kiss was disunited by a voice.

"Anu!"

Yusuke pulled away from Keiko when he heard the call resound into his chamber and stood up to turn and peer at the entranceway that led to the stairs. Keiko looked behind Yusuke to pinpoint the derivation of the voice. She found a chubby but Lilliputian girl with lengthy, white hair that twisted into black and gray curls from the ears down hopping up the stairs. Before Keiko could capaciously observe the little girl, she scampered across the bedchamber and bolted her dwarfish arms around Yusuke's calf with a hail, "Anu, Seitei told me not to come up here but I missed you."

"Hey, there you are," Yusuke jived as he held a hand down to the little girl and she clutched onto it as Yusuke forklifted her into his arms.

Keiko had taken to her feet and when Yusuke turned around with the child in his arms her impertinent eyes connected with globular, all-encompassing gray-blue eyes framed by a pudgy face, black eyebrows, a miniature nose, and voluminous lips that whined, "Who are you?"

Keiko smiled at Yusuke then at the little damsel, "I'm Keiko."

The little girl toothily grinned back, "I'm Ayame." Keiko felt a veneer of guiltiness occupy her features finally having determined the other female in Yusuke's life she was so envious of was a child- an adorable, mutilated child. The curls twisted into the ends of Ayame's hair bounded as she gawked backwards at Yusuke, "Did you rescue Keiko like you did me?"

"No," Yusuke smirked as his other arm came around the small girl, "she's my fiancée."

Ayame crinkled her nose in misconstruction, "What's a fiancé?"

Yusuke adjusted his word choice to make the young demon comprehend, "It means that she's going to be my mate."

"Aw!" Ayame looked back to Keiko, "You're valentines!"

Keiko grinned and commented, "You have the prettiest eyes, Ayame."

Ayame beamed, "Thank you! You're pretty as the moon, Keiko! How did Anu hustle you into being his mate? He's very bad-tempered and disrespectful, you know."

Keiko laughed as Yusuke pretended to be annoyed by Ayame's digs, "Hey, you little holy terror, watch your mouth."

"You watch my mouth, I can't see it," Ayame pursed her lips in mockery.

Keiko smiled upon finding herself endeared to the child and questioned, "How old are you, Ayame?"

"Thirty-three," Ayame grinned sheepishly, revealing razor-sharp canine teeth, "just a baby."

Keiko tilted her head in humor, "Older than me."

Ayame leaned over in Yusuke's hold to drape her hands against Keiko's stomach, giving the human a perfect view of the few black stripes randomly stretched over her corpselike pale skin. Keiko curiously wondered what the little girl was attempting to do but her questions were hurriedly answered as Ayame sniffed her for a prolonged period of time. The child gazed up at Keiko with wide eyes when she was finished and remarked, "You're a ningen."

"Yes, I am," Keiko sanctioned.

Ayame became mortified as she exclaimed when her miniscule fingers kinked into fabric of Keiko's shirt, "It's not safe for you to be here, Keiko! You could get hurt then Anu would just die!"

Yusuke parenthesized, "She knows that, Ayame, and so do I. That's why I'm takin' her back to the Ningenkai."

"Yusuke," Keiko called unobtrusively as her eyebrows knitted, "I don't want to leave. I want to be with you."

Yusuke doubled over to place Ayame on the ground in order to clinch Keiko's shoulders, "Keiko, I refuse to let you stay here."

"Why?" Keiko's left hand cuffed around Yusuke's rights elbow as she reasoned, "We already know the rebels will come to the Ningenkai to get me and this would kill two birds with one stone. You could be taking care of business in Makai without having to fret over my safety in the Ningenkai. We could just be sure to stay together at all times."

"I'd rather not take you to the places I bust where girls are being mutilated and tortured," Yusuke insisted with a headstrong countenance.

Keiko sighed before embracing Yusuke with her right arm, "Don't you think I'd be safer with you instead of alone in Ningenkai?"

"You're not going to be alone. I'm taking you to the temple. Genkai is going to watch over you until I straighten this shit out," Yusuke professed as he arms snaked around Keiko's neck.

"Watch your language. A child is here," Keiko pinched Yusuke's arm.

Yusuke's eyebrow quirked upwards as he informed, "She uses the word cunt every other sentence. I don't think it really matters."

Keiko vaguely glanced at the little girl, "It's a shame that indecorous word even exists." Meeting Yusuke's eyes again, Keiko digressed with glimmering sarcasm, "And I'm sure Genkai's going to love to play the role of babysitter."

"Hell yeah she's gonna love it or I'm gonna make 'er," Yusuke scoffed as he piloted a kiss to Keiko's cheek.

Keiko merely shook her head, "What if it takes years to straighten everything out, Yusuke?"

Ayame ingrained from Keiko and Yusuke's feet, "He won't let this drag out for much longer, Keiko. Right, Anu?"

When the loving couple looked downwards at the ray of sunshine with needle-pointed canine teeth, they both instinctually smiled before releasing their hold on one another. Yusuke lowered himself to his knees and ended up sitting cross-legged on the floor while clamping his hands around the little demon's, "I don't know how long it's gonna take. But I'll keep fighting until the rebels are ashes and can't ever hurt people like you again."

"Em estoque jui," Ayame pronounced as she flung her arms around Yusuke's neck.

Yusuke promptly hugged the little spirit in return before adjusting his hands under her arms to pull her back and stare her straight in the eye, "Sinnu, can you give me some time with Keiko?"

Ayame cloven-footedly smiled and winked at Yusuke, "Yeah huh."

Yusuke again faked exasperation with the roll of his eyes as he released Ayame. The baby demon darted towards the exit and capered down the stairs without another word. Yusuke made it to his feet and traced Ayame's footsteps as he stepped through the doorway into the corridor and tossed a glance over the top step to make sure she followed her word. After noting she was definitely gone, Yusuke made his way back to Keiko with the allegation, "She usually doesn't do what I want her to."

"Sounds like somebody I know," Keiko derided with a shadow of a smirk before backtracking to sit on the edge of Yusuke's bed once more. Yusuke took advantage of Keiko's chaste action as he swiftly made his way to stand in front of her before curving his back to attach his lips to hers. Yusuke lured Keiko into a pulchritudinous but cauterized kiss with the idle movements of his lips. Keiko bandaged her arms around Yusuke's neck as one of his arms winded around her waist to lift her form against his while supporting his weight on the flat plain of the bed with his other hand. Sooner or later, Yusuke pulled away from her blooming lips to sow kisses against her jawline, giving her the opportunity to inquire, "What does Sinnu mean?"

Yusuke hummed against Keiko's throat as he lowered her form onto the bed, "Ivory. Ayame is a white tiger apparition so I thought it was a nice fit after I heard someone call her that."

"She's beautiful," Keiko murmured before Yusuke's lips dovetailed against her bottom lip.

"I'm surprised you're complimenting her," Yusuke ridiculed sarcastically between kisses, "since she's your competition."

Keiko lightly smacked Yusuke's face, "Shut up, jerk."

Yusuke grinned and engaged Keiko with another kiss before uttering, "On one condition. Let me take your clothes off."

Keiko audaciously seized Yusuke's hands to coerce his fingers to hook into the bottom of her tank top, "If you do, you're not allowed to change your mind."

"Trust me, Keiko, once your clothes are off, I won't be able to."

The celestial sphere over Makai was painted black with stars gleaming like fish eyes by the time Yusuke drowsily settled into his bed with Keiko on top of him. Admissions of love were the last communication Yusuke and Keiko had with one another before wearily zonking out while lying bare-skinned in each other's arms. The next morning, Yusuke awoke to the whirring of Keiko dressing and mumbling to herself. With a convivial smile Yusuke stated, "Morning."

Keiko buttoned her jeans before she perched on the side of the bed in order to extend her hand to cup Yusuke's face after he elevated onto his elbows and forearms, "I told you."

Yusuke's nose crinkled as he inspected, "Told me what?"

"That you wouldn't hurt me if we made love," Keiko offered a smile as he clutched his hand around all her fingers except her thumb.

Yusuke rotated onto his side and used his hold on Keiko to tug her back in order to cradle her against his torso, "My tattoos made an appearance."

Keiko drew her legs from over the side of the bed as she snuggled against Yusuke's undressed body to gain a better position to embed her face beneath his chin, "I don't care."

After a few instants of silence, Yusuke ducked his head backwards then down to secure a kiss to Keiko's lips before muttering, "Love you, Keiko."

"I love you, too," Keiko certified as her fingernails dug into his bicep. "But I'm still mad at you for lying."

"That's ok," Yusuke inputted, "I'm still mad you believed I cheated on you."

Keiko turned the subject without warning, "Don't make me leave, Yusuke."

Yusuke sighed as he guided her to her back and climbed onto his elbow beside her, allowing him immaculate access to viewing her face, "Demons, mutilation, females- do we need to play Pictionary or something? You gotta go."

Keiko huffed as she looked towards the domelike ceiling, "If I go will you promise to come to the temple every couple weeks to let me know you're ok?"

Yusuke's hand deflated onto Keiko's sylphlike stomach, "I promise."

The brunette respired as she sat up, causing his hand to slip to her hipbone, "Alright. Get dressed then we'll leave."

Yusuke retracted his hand and trundled around to get out of the unoccupied side of the bed. Keiko's face was quickly glazed in rouge as Yusuke's unclothed frame was exposed as he shifted from beneath the bed linens to retrieve his clothes. As she arose, he called out, "Take one of my shirts, Keiko. The old hag's gonna bitch that I'm not takin' good enough care of you if I let you stay in that blood-soaked shirt."

"Ok," Keiko agreed before turning around to find Yusuke fastening his jeans, "good to know you only do nice things for me to prevent Genkai from nagging you." Yusuke only smiled then gathered the white shirt he donned the previous night and tossed it to Keiko, who easily caught it with one hand, and speculated, "Do you want to take Ayame to the temple?"

Yusuke advisedly stared at Keiko after putting on a plain gray t-shirt, "I don't know. Ayame is kind of a punk; she's really hard to take care of."

"If I can handle a full-size you, I can handle a thirty pound you," Keiko opined with a relic of a smile on her lips.

Yusuke repressed a smile, "You love comparin' me to a kid, don't you?"

Keiko full-out grinned, "It's not my fault there's so many similarities between you and a child."

"Think about who you're calling a child, Keiko," Yusuke quipped with an insidious undercurrent, "because you had sex with me last night. So guess what that makes you?"

Keiko's smile did not falter as she turned her back towards Yusuke to rumple her tank top over her head and replaced it with the lent shirt she had in hand, "You know, Yusuke, there's only a few people I find obnoxious and your all of them."

Yusuke scoffed, "That's bullshit. What about Kuwabara and Botan?"

Keiko chuckled as she conceded, "I suppose. But they're obnoxious in a different way than you are."

Yusuke jumped to Keiko to encase his arms around her and mildly twirled her in a half-circle, "Yeah, I guess my type of obnoxious is the brand that makes you want to have your way with me."

"Shut up, bigmouth," Keiko playfully pinched Yusuke's cheek. "Decide whether you want Ayame at the temple or not."

Yusuke was motionless in contemplation as he alternated his weight on his feet before eventually nodding, "Maybe it's the best thing to do. Grandma's temple is far enough away from the border to offer extra security with the distance and shit and you guys will have her there." Yusuke relinquished his hold on Keiko and clasped her hand as he started towards the exit, "Of course, we're gonna have to convince her to go. Let's tell her Genkai's a nice fairy that lives in a house of sugar she can eat unless the seven dwarves come around."

Keiko sped up her footfalls to walk beside Yusuke rather than behind him, "You should have learned that telling fibs only ends badly."

"Yeah, yeah," Yusuke ejected the beginning of his thought as he became to descend the stairs. However, he was cut off from expanding on what he was about to say when he caught sight of Ayame and her indigo, ankle-length dress curled in a ball with her knees tucked under her chin at the bottom of the stairwell. He drew Keiko's attention to the demon child as he called, "What are you doin', Sinnu?"

Ayame rotated her head towards the descending couple as she proclaimed, "Hokushin yelled at me."

"How long have you been sittin' there?"

"A long time," Ayame asserted as she stared at them with dopy, wide eyes and a moue.

Yusuke made his way to the mewling girl as he released Keiko's hand and sat on the third stair with his feet positioning on the bottom landing. It wasn't long before Ayame crawled into Yusuke's lap and coiled into a sphere against his stomach. Keiko was somewhat staggered by how attached Ayame was to Yusuke as he muffled, "Why'd long-neck yell at you?"

"He said I was wondering too far from the fortress but I wasn't," Ayame moped with a protruding bottom lip.

Yusuke's typical bantering disposition was absent as he disparaged, "Listen, you gotta listen to Hokushin and the others if they say you're goin' too far, alright, you holy terror? They're just making sure you won't ever get hurt again. Ok?" Ayame merely nodded her head as Yusuke divulged, "Now, tell 'em bye cause I've decided my and Raizen's territory isn't safe enough for you anymore."

Ayame peered up at Yusuke with marbled eyes and utter confusion, "Huh? Where are we going?"

"I'm sending you with Keiko to stay in the Ningenkai until all the rebels are gone," Yusuke certified as he stood up with the white tiger demon in his folded arms.

The black and white-haired infant grouched, "How are those cunts going to get gone with you in the Ningenkai, Anu?"

"I'm not staying with you and Keiko. We're gonna go to Mukuro's territory to the katakonbu tunnels and I'll take you where you need to go in the Ningenkai but then I'm comin' back," Yusuke particularized as he stared into resistive prominent almond eyes.

The baby spirit spat, "No! I'm staying with you!"

"No, you're gonna stay with Keiko," Yusuke rigidly asserted. "So get used to the idea."

"I don't want to go to the Ningenkai if you're not going to be there!"

"You're gonna do what I say as long as I'm the one responsible for keepin' you safe, Ayame."

Ayame crossed her arms and issued a death stare, "Why the hell are you being such a cunt?"

"Cause it will keep you safe in the long run," Yusuke iterated with a flinty expression as he imprisoned the rebellious girl against his side and reattached his and Keiko's hands before slinking along. "We gotta get moving. It'll be nearly an all-day trip and I want you two at Genkai's before sundown."

After a while of walking, Keiko finally inquired, "So we're going into catacombs?"

"Yeah." Yusuke derided, "You scared?"

"I'm much more afraid of the living than the dead."

The triad said their farewells to Hokushin and the others then made their way to the environs of Mukuro's territory without any hostilities from the demon populous. With Ayame still secured in one of his arms, Yusuke led the way through a petrified forest that seemed to only host tones of brown, rust, and gray. The few trees inhabiting the forest spiraled into knots as they loomed over the nomadic trio, creaking with every slice of wind that blew. A mountain range of fossilized soil framed the lifeless valley they marched through, accompanied only by the noises of their footfalls, before finally hedging towards one of the numerous oxidized mountains. Yusuke turned to Keiko and nodded his head towards the little girl in his clutch, "Take her."

Keiko held out her hands as Yusuke propped Ayame into her arms then turned towards a fallen petrified tree trunk and cracked his knuckles. He hunched over and wedged his fingers underneath the trunk to lift it from a cleft and roll it away. Keiko felt inquisitive when she saw the flat but slanted rocks strategically placed to resemble a stairwell that led to a blackness as dark as the grave. It appeared that the makeshift stairway was ancient as collapsed rock from the carved passageway had crumbled around the unsteady stepping stones. Yusuke stood erect and turned towards Keiko to instruct, "Ok, I know it's creepy as hell but it's the best we got. So get movin'."

Ayame protested reservedly, "How will we see?"

Yusuke scratched the back of his head and wore an askew grin, "That's the tricky part. We don't."

Keiko wittily hypothesized, "Do you actually know the way or did you have random luck in guessing where you should go last time?"

"Don't worry, I know the way," Yusuke insisted even though Keiko could see through his charade. "Alright, walk on in and stop at the end of the steps. I gotta close off the tunnel again then I'll lead the way."

Keiko refrained from further challenging Yusuke's navigational capability as she bounced Ayame in her arms when the little demon slipped down before walking to the opening to the catacombs. Keiko wearily and languidly made the journey down the prehistoric stairs and stopped within millimeters of the last step. However, the sun hoisted in the reddish, sparsely clouded Makai sky allotted Yusuke to make the deduction, "Nuh uh, take a couple steps back and to the side. I don't want to bang heads with you once I lower the tree."

With a groan of irritation Keiko stepped back then nearly to the musty wall of the tunnel. The snide comment on the tip of her tongue, unfortunately, was replaced by a shriek when a filmy figure tackled Yusuke. A blindsided Yusuke and the unidentified assaulter rocketed over the steps and knocked into Keiko's legs as the battling duo slid across the dirt pathway to collide with the side of the oddly angled tunnel. Keiko rotated her body to the side as she smashed against the ground, effectively avoiding falling on Ayame. She swiftly recovered and entangled one arm around the small demon in her grasp and elevating herself onto her free hand, "Yusuke!"

The scrap continued with the resonating grunts and clashing of flesh before Yusuke called out, "Keiko, close off the tunnel!"

"But Yusuke-"

"Do it now!"

Keiko scrambled to her feet and sat Ayame on the third stair before making her way to the top. She wrenched over the cut out to the tunnel and struggled to roll the petrified tree over the wasteland forest floor but eventually completed her mission. Keiko ducked and skidded backwards down the stairs to escape getting bonked by the tree jamming into place over the opening. The light that showered into the tunnel was blotted into darkness, destroying Keiko's vision. She somehow located Ayame and tugged the white tiger apparition onto the other side of her to create a human shield effect in case Yusuke or the malevolent opponent were to crash into them again. Suddenly, the underground escape route echoed with a booming that resembled cartilage and bone splitting.

"Yusuke!"


	5. Tonight's Alright For Fighting

It's been so long because I had a mental breakdown, ran away to Nashville with no shoes, and broke my friend's Fender guitar. Landed myself in a hospital. Never a leaden moment with me. I caught my latest review once recently which made me elect to continue. Thank that last reviewer if you like this story.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. I do not own the manga/anime characters, plots, or creation.

**Miles and Miles of Regret**

**by TheKennethAnger**

Chapter 5: Tonight's Alright for Fighting

Keiko blindly sat Ayame on the ground behind her and edged her hand along the bell-curved wall of the blackened tunnel once the noises of a struggle ceased. She silently called, "Yusuke?"

A shockwave gasp escaped her throat when she felt a drizzly hand squeeze hers, "Hey, it's just me."

Keiko's fingers encircled Yusuke's palm as pointed out, "Your hand's wet."

Yusuke's voice reverberated through the beginning of the catacombs, "It's blood. If it bothers you, hold onto my shirt so you don't get lost."

Keiko affirmed, "I'll hold your hand. Are you ok?"

"Of course," Yusuke assured, "just a few cuts; didn't expect the bastard. You got Ayame?"

"I'm right here, Anu!" Ayame claimed as Yusuke felt a tug on the material around his ankle.

Maintaining his hold on Keiko's hand, Yusuke stooped down and uplifted the tiny tiger into his arm before pacing along the blood-coated ground to navigate through the tunnel. Keiko, however, could feel the off-balance wobble in Yusuke's steps and mutely took Ayame to hold. Yusuke felt his way through the tunnel with his now free hand but didn't comment for a long while before investigating, "You didn't get hurt when we knocked into you, did ya?"

"No," Keiko squeezed his hand in reassurance.

"Good," Yusuke's balmy voice cruised around the tunnel and Keiko's eardrums.

Yusuke led Keiko further into the tunnel with a long expanse of silence in tow before she queried, "Are you sure you're ok, Yusuke?"

"Yeah, the bastard just took one helluva sucker punch," Yusuke warily granted.

Keiko intensely attempted to find Yusuke with her eyes but the dark disallowed such a thing, "Alright, tough guy, if you say so."

Hush became palpable again as the Mazoku treaded along the catacombs while his fingers occasionally brushed over a rocklike-encrusted skull as he guided their way. It wasn't long before Yusuke's steps were falling normally again and the blood on his hand dried, save for the schmaltzy gore webbed between his and Keiko's enclosed fingers. Keiko intended to ignite a conversation numerous times but refrained when she thought how easily distracted Yusuke could be while he navigated through unfamiliar territory. A solid hour lapsed before Yusuke became bored rigid, "Ok, who wants to play I spy?"

Keiko extended the jest, "I spy something black."

"Fuck, I give up," Yusuke relayed a serious tone.

Ayame chimed in, "You two are stupid. Everything's black."

Yusuke scoffed, "Wow, lighten up, you holy terror."

"If I could lighten up we wouldn't be in the dark," Ayame mockingly scolded.

"Yeah, nice comeback, Ayame," Yusuke spiritedly prodded. "Was that the best your lobotomied brain could come up with?"

"Lobotomied isn't a word, you stupid cunt," Ayame pointed out.

"It is now, you little bitch," Yusuke gave an unseen smirk at engaging Ayame in a childish insult fest.

Although Keiko couldn't actually see Ayame, she felt the minute demon look at her, "Keiko, why are you with him?"

"Sometime he takes me to the movies," Keiko chuckled as she offered a slight crush to Yusuke's hand.

Yusuke snarled with the mildest trace of laughter, "I think I'm gettin' ganged up on by a harpy and a hell cat."

Keiko joined in the slur game, "Insensate idiot."

"Joke's on you, Keiko; I don't know what the hell that means," Yusuke snickered as he proceeded to lead them to the right of a fork in the tunnel.

"Allow me, Kei." Ayame directed another insult at Yusuke, "Anu, you're a motherfucking cocksucker."

Yusuke grinned and tossed over his shoulder, "Hey, Keiko, Ayame has a crush on Kurama."

Although Ayame's blush was unseen, it doused her face, "Shut up! You said you wouldn't tell anyone!"

"I lied," Yusuke chuckled at the tiger's distress. "Never trust a motherfuckin' cocksucker."

Keiko shook her head, "Language, you two."

"She wrote a poem about him," Yusuke snorted, instigating Ayame to reach out to take a swipe with her claws at his back. Keiko could only giggle at the prospect as Yusuke recited, "Roses are red, violets are blue, but no flower is prettier than you. Kurama, the beautiful, our love is doable."

Ayame vehemently denied with a high-pitched, "I never wrote that!"

Yusuke addressed Keiko, "Pretty much. Just as sugary."

"Yusuke, don't make fun of her," Keiko grinned in the underground blackout. "Don't you know that mocking a girl's crush can shape how she views male perspective of females and their feelings?"

"Nope and I don't care," Yusuke laughed as he took a left at the next fork of the catacombs.

Keiko exaggeratedly sighed, "You're hopeless."

Casual banter filled with name-calling and foul language continued to echo in the dome of the tunnels as they passed through the seemingly endless pathways. After a couple hours of triangulation glimmers of a dusty light impregnated the night-like tunnels, indicating the finish of the dreary, rancid underground tombs. Yusuke released Keiko's hand, "Don't move." Yusuke hopped to the opening that was blatantly not fully and properly closed off (otherwise no light would have flickered through). He found himself tripping over a succession of rocks before using gleams of the dull light intruding to traipse up the makeshift stairway that resembled the one in the beginning of their journey. Yusuke didn't have to exert much energy to raise the large strips of bark that epiphytes and bryophytes were growing around on the mossy forest floor.

Once the camouflage cover-up was removed, the grayish mist that was sparsely highlighted by rays of sunlight flooded Keiko's eyes. She sat Ayame on the ground, exhausted from holding her for approximately three hours, and followed the white tiger demon as she bounded past Yusuke, happy to escape the dank and putrid-smelling catacombs. Yusuke placed a hand behind Ayame to catch her in case she fell back on the shaky rock stairs before turning to Keiko, "It'll be a few hours to get through the Cloud Forest. Do you need a rest?"

"I'm fine," Keiko confirmed before approaching Yusuke and clasping his forearms, taking note of the dried blood dabbled around his face, neck, and shirt collar. "But you have to hold Ayame. My arms feel like gelatin."

Yusuke offered a reserved smile and took hold of one of Keiko's hands to stabilize her as she trod up the stairs, him not but a step behind, "You should'a told me. I would have carried her."

"I didn't want to complain while you were concentrating on getting us through the tunnels. Not that I'm convinced you knew which way you were going," Keiko noted as she stepped onto the mossy, slick forest floor beside the entryway to the catacombs.

"Yeah, you caught me but I just tried to remember which way I went last time. Whatever, we came out where we were supposed to," Yusuke boasted then relinquished his hold on Keiko's hand to flick some of the flaky dried blood chips off his hands and wrists.

Keiko surveyed the orchids, ferns, and lichens that littered the forest. Avocado-colored hanging moss acted as natural curtains around short trees and branches of the dense forest. A fog suffocated the entire landscape and high-altitude mountains were clouded with the misty gray, decorating Keiko's view. Yusuke interrupted her observations when he called out, "Ayame, where'd you go?"

Ayame popped out from under the cool temperate brush, "Right here, Anu. I'm just looking at the filmy ferns."

"Well come back over here," Yusuke instructed, causing the child to gallop to Yusuke. He hoisted her up and reminded, "There's poisonous plants in here, stupid."

"Please," Ayame crossed her arms, "I'd know which ones were poisonous more than you would."

Yusuke derided, "Just because you have a crush on Kurama doesn't mean you know everything about plants, ok?" Yusuke tapped Ayame's nose, "Kurama told _me_ which plants were poisonous, not _you_."

Ayame merely stuck out her tongue before curling into a ball against Yusuke's chest. His torso and head rotated to Keiko as he dangled a hand in the air before clinching his fingers back and forth to lure her hand into a lock with his. Keiko sewed her hand to Yusuke's and they began steering through the Cloud Forest. The thick fog blinded them to more than twenty feet ahead but considering the improvement in comparison to the grave-like tunnels, they didn't complain. Yusuke made a trail through the overly vegetated forest and instructed when to step over certain plants he recognized as dangerous. His cast-iron grip on Ayame did not go unnoticed by Keiko who was once again a bit off-guard by how protective Yusuke was of the child. However, she was swiftly reminded of how over-protective Yusuke was of her also when her foot landed in a hole in the forest floor, disguised by moss and mist. Keiko's footing was lost and she ground onto her knee despite Yusuke's catlike reaction to shift his weight to support her from falling hard, "Dammit, Keiko, you gotta watch where you're goin'! I'm holding a kid!"

"Geez, sorry, Yusuke," Keiko sarcastically permitted, "I wouldn't have fallen if I'd known it would cause you such inconvenience."

Yusuke sighed and forklifted Keiko to her feet after encircling his arm around her mid-torso, "I didn't say you did it to inconvenience me. Look, I just don't want you hurt, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," Keiko conceded before Yusuke smoothed a kiss on her lips.

His lips then trailed to brush over her cheekbone as he ensured, "I mean it. You're my favorite person and I don't want you to even get a scraped knee. Now, hold onto me. We gotta keep moving."

Yusuke unraveled his arm from around her and hooked hands once more as he forged onward. The crimson sky was nothing more than a dim glow through the profuse fog clouding the forest as they traveled. An eerie, cataclysmic feeling dwelled in Keiko's stomach at the foliage and questionable creatures, such as three-tailed lizards, that surrounded their feet as much as their vision. The moisture engorging the air generated droplets of water to touch down on their faces, hair, and clothes and they were seemingly drenched from a swim. However, over the rocks and through the forest to Genkai's house they went. As they came upon a hill of the Cloud Forest, the fog thinned out and crawled mostly on the ground. Then a realization reared itself to Keiko, "Yusuke, why haven't we been attacked by any demons?"

"No demons live in the Cloud Forest or come in it because there's a chick that basically claimed the place like a thousand years ago and she kills anybody who comes in it, especially men. Which is why the rebels aren't here. All of the rebels but that one in the farmland house are male. The lady's name's Asdis Azariah; she's a huldra."

Keiko requested, "Which is…"

"She's like a forest slash aquatic creature that just doesn't like to be bothered much if she's not the one startin' the conversation," Yusuke vaguely explained.

Keiko pondered as she ducked away from some hanging moss, "Why has she let you cross through the forest without trying to kill you?"

"She tried to the first time," Yusuke confirmed with a huff. "She was a freakin' tree from behind then she turned around and attacked me. But Kurama said that if I complimented her and treated her with respect and shit that she would probably leave me alone. So I told her I was friends with Kurama and she stopped attacking me long enough for me to compliment her and-"

Keiko lightly laughed at this admission, "Imagine that. Compliments overpower fists."

"Yeah, well, I didn't wanna kill 'er," Yusuke narrowed his eyes at Keiko's mockery.

"That's a first," Keiko noted as Yusuke daringly glared at her.

"She's Kurama's friend, ok?" Yusuke shrugged his shoulders for emphasis, "He asked me not to kill her or hurt her or anything."

Keiko wandered aloud, "Why is she friends with a male if they're the ones she attacks most?"

"I guess Kurama really respects her because she is a plant manipulator, too," Yusuke took a stab at the reasoning. "And she has a fox tail so maybe they bonded over appendages."

"It would be sweet if Kurama's so shielding of her because they were fox loves," Keiko smiled at the notion.

"Why you gotta turn everything into romance?" Yusuke prodded with a sarcastic denotation.

Ayame piped up, "Because she's a ningen. Now, how much longer until we get there?"

"We still got a few hours," Yusuke concluded. "We're almost to the barrier but then we gotta go all the way to the hag's temple."

As the nomads trudged along, a plant with vine-like extensions and violet and green leaves savagely latched onto Keiko's wrist. Yusuke instantaneously severed the vine's grip with brute strength then pulled Keiko by the hand flush against his side and wrapped an arm around her. A collage of plans of action flipped through the film of his mind's eye but he succumbed to only confusion when a tree to their left began to rouse. The movement set off the facts of the situation- _Asdis Azariah, the Belladonna_. Yusuke called out, "What's wrong, Asdis?"

The built tree turned half circle to reveal a shapely woman that nearly paralyzed Keiko with her beauty. Green tips were splashed against her tyrian purple hair and only accentuated her gold-ish, yellow irises as she scrutinized Yusuke and his company with her almond-shaped eyes. Keiko noticed a blue frost fox tail- which is deceptively named since the tail was black- waving behind Asdis as she took in the demon's dress. At first glance it looked like a silk strapless dress with ruched cross-over detail on the chest, curved stripes on the front and back, and a fishtail bottom that touched the forest floor. Upon more meticulous inspection Keiko realized the dress was black belladonna berries tightly strung together by green vines. The deadly nightshade dress was a handcrafted masterpiece that utterly impressed Keiko to the bone. A dagger-like fingernail pointed at Keiko as Asdis hissed, "You've brought a ningen into my Cloud Forest, Yusuke. The last time a ningen was in my forest they only brought destruction."

"She is gonna be my mate and I'm taking her back to Ningenkai to keep her safe from the rebels," Yusuke asserted as his grip clinched Keiko harsher. "I don't intend to bring her back through your Cloud Forest. This is a one time thing, 'k? She won't hurt anything."

"I will hold you to your word." Asdis growled ferociously at Keiko, "If she comes through here again, I will kill her."

Although Yusuke's vocal chords rumbled with a growl he bit his tongue to repress the threats he wanted to say, "Fine. You won't be seeing her."

"And don't bring that abomination in here again either," Asdis condemned as she turned her glare to Ayame. "I will kill her faster than I would kill the ningen."

"She's just a little girl," Yusuke pointed out.

"You don't know whose child that is, do you?"

"No. Enlighten me."

Asdis cut off the conversation as she twirled in her deadly nightshade dress and walked along the mossy ground, giving Keiko a second-long glance at her bare, pale feet treading along under the fishtail bottom. Within seconds, Asdis vanished into the thick fog of the valley as plants swayed towards her with each step. Keiko let out a breath she didn't even realize she was withholding in her throat once Asdis was no longer visible. When she looked at Yusuke, Keiko witnessed an angry expression with fiery eyes, "Yusuke?"

Still keeping in mind that Kurama made a special request for him not to bring any harm to Asdis Azariah, Yusuke huffed and barred his disrespectful remarks in exchange for a low, "Let's get the hell to Genkai's."

Yusuke guided Keiko to the barrier, arriving midday, and they trekked through the clammy tunnel that opened to the Ningenkai. Once able to speak without fury frothing from his mouth, Yusuke instructed, "Keiko, don't ever go through the Cloud Forest again. I don't know what happened in the past with humans in there but obviously Asdis is not a fan."

"But she accepted you," Keiko alluded as she took a deep breath of the fresh air from a light breeze.

"Probably 'cause I'm Raizen's ancestral son. Kurama said she really respected Raizen and respect is one of the only things she pays attention to," Yusuke sorted with uncertainty. "I don't know but it took all I had not to punch her right in the fuckin' ovaries."

Keiko repressed a laugh and breathed through her nose as a smile graced her lips, "She was a bit mercenary."

Yusuke addressed the small tiger demon next, "Ayame, same goes for you. Don't go back into the Cloud Forest."

Ayame curled up tighter in Yusuke's arms and insisted, "She was a cunt. Even I don't know who my parents are. How does she? And why'd she call me an abomination?"

"I don't know, Sinnu. She was probably talkin' out of her ass," Yusuke deduced with a shrug as they navigated towards the train station in downtown. "Alright, listen. You just need to act like a sleeping kid while we're in public because I don't want everybody in our business tryin' to figure out why you have your demonic characteristics. So just get ready to curl up and not say anything for a while."

Ayame astonishingly made no protest and followed Yusuke's instructions once they were in the limits of the city. She curled into a spheroid in Yusuke's hold, tucking her nose against his ribs and feigning slumber. The little tiger felt like she had been tucked into herself for days by the time Yusuke permitted her to 'awaken.' She puffed a sigh of relief to be able to stretch her limbs as he sat her onto the dirt ground. Ayame took in the heavily forested area they were walking towards then turned to watch as the train revved away from the station. She didn't watch it travel far before Yusuke pronounced, "Come on, Ayame, it's almost dark."

"Ok, Anu," Ayame bounded behind Yusuke and Keiko.

As they voyaged through the flourishing forest came to a close, Keiko, Yusuke, and Ayame stopped at the first step that led to Genkai's temple. Yusuke chose the lengthy time it took for them to climb the concrete stairs to explain, "Alright, listen up. No dissing Genkai because she'll beat your ass. She'll probably call you a brat or an idiot all the time but don't take it personally. And don't call her a cunt no matter what."

Ayame was well aware Yusuke was directing these edifications at her and merely took them in as she saw the pinnacle of the roof of the temple. She was pleasantly surprised when a pocket-sized demon greeted them, "Yusuke! Keiko! It's so good to see you two together!"

Ayame only looked to Yusuke and Keiko as they responded at the same time, "Hey, Yukina."

Yukina grinned as she laced her hands together, "I just knew you two would work your relationship out."

"Yeah." Yusuke eluded further questioning about his and Keiko's relationship as he probed, "Where's Grandma?"

"I'm right here, dimwit," Genkai's wise-ass voice flooded the atmosphere.

"I gotta talk to you," Yusuke informed as he caught sight of Yukina staring perplexedly at Ayame.

"Talk then, dumbass," Genkai crossed her arms.

"Alone, you old bitch," Yusuke stated and took the beaten dirt path that led around to the back of the temple. Genkai refrained from debasing Yusuke as she shadowed his movements. Once they were behind the temple, Yusuke went so far as to walk into the adjoining timbered gorge before turning to speak, "Keiko has to stay here."

"This isn't a fucking hotel, Yusuke," Genkai reminded as she leaned her shoulder against a maple tree, "and I'm not a fucking babysitter."

"Shit, Genkai, I know but this is really important," Yusuke huffed as he mindlessly clinched his fists. "If Keiko doesn't stay here something bad will happen."

"I'm shocked you don't want her with you if you think that's the case," Genkai's eyebrow shot up and she tapped her fingers against the inside of her bent elbow.

"There's rebels in Makai and they came to the human world and tried to take her," Yusuke began to pace. "I can't keep her with me because when I kill these rebels there's always girls in horrible shape and I don't want her to see that."

"Rebels, huh?" Genkai took on an intensive expression, "Just what the hell's been going on in Makai?"

Yusuke temperamentally clarified, "Some assholes think they're gonna do something after they kill or capture Yomi, Mukuro, and me or somethin'."

"I can see you're oblivious as ever," Genkai scoffed droningly. "Do you want to explain why girls are in horrible shape when you find them with these rebels?"

"They're carving girls' reproductive organs and I got no clue why," Yusuke illuminated.

In light of this information, Genkai wasn't sure what to say other than, "How the hell did they know who Keiko even was?"

"I don't fuckin' know but I couldn't even sleep last night while she was in my territory because I was afraid someone would stalk into my room and try to kill her," Yusuke grudgingly admitted. "So color me selfish but I can't wipe these bastards out while worrying over Keiko. And until I do get rid of 'em Keiko isn't safe and I won't be having any piece of that fucked up pie."

Genkai rotated to fully lean her back against the tree, "Who was the little brat?"

"Her name's Ayame. Demons were mutilating her when I found her and she had nowhere to go while she got better so she stayed with me in the fortress," Yusuke continued to pace.

Genkai looked opposite of Yusuke and his girded stare then entertained, "I feel bad chemistry from her."

"You're off your rocker, you bat," Yusuke scathingly mouthed off. "She's an infant. She won't make trouble…well not any _re_al trouble."

"Her aura made me feel like I was looking in Pandora's box," Genkai grimaced as she looked back to Yusuke.

Yusuke threw his hand through the air, "What the hell does that mean?"

"Never mind, dimwit," Genkai rolled her eyes and looked away from him again. "You're so slow on uptake."

Yusuke interrogated the elderly but uncultivated woman, "Are you gonna keep Keiko and Ayame safe or not?"

Genkai sighed exaggeratedly, "Might as well if it will stop your bitching."

Yusuke stomped to Genkai and stood precisely in front of her, prompting her to mildly turn her head towards him, "Promise me you will keep Keiko safe, Genkai."

Genkai blinked a few times before assuring, "I won't let anything happen to Keiko, Yusuke."

"Thanks," Yusuke murmured as he circled to tread back to the front of the temple. As he turned the corner of the structure he found Yukina kneeled on the ground talking to Ayame and Keiko propped against a tree on the brink of the landing with her back to them, overlooking the verdant scenery. He made his way to the moony college student and wrapped his arms around her waist and nudged his nose against the back of her skull, "Genkai said she'll babysit you."

Keiko hesitated to respond verbally and pivoted in Yusuke's encompassing arms. She twined her hands around his neck and melded her lips to his bottom one knowing it was farewell time. Though Yusuke wasn't big on public displays of affection, he voluntarily complied and doubled the pressure of Keiko's mouth. He shifted and split his lips against hers for a minute or so before pulling back. Keiko cupped Yusuke's jaw as she lamented, "Please be careful, Yusuke."

Yusuke forwent words to sink his lips against Keiko's but he responded afterwards, "I have to get going. I love ya, babe."

Keiko nodded, "Love you, too. And don't forget you said you would come back every once in a while to let me know you're alive."

Yusuke rejoined without making any full-on promises, "I know and I'm gonna try my best."

"Alright," Keiko nodded and gave another lascivious kiss to Yusuke's lips before releasing him. "Get going and be _careful_, Yusuke. I'll take care of Ayame."

"Speaking of which…" Yusuke couldn't help but connect his lips to Keiko's again before releasing her and made a 180 motion and called, "Ayame, I'm leavin'!"

Ayame dashed to Yusuke as he stooped down and enveloped her in his cast iron arms, "Don't get killed, Anu. I'll never forgive you if you do."

"I'll be alright." Yusuke unhooked his arms from around the tiger apparition and encouraged, "Be the little darling spirit I know you can be for Keiko, Genkai, and Yukina. Don't do anything bad and listen to 'em."

Ayame simply nodded then Yusuke spun on his heel and lopped down the stairs without another word. The sun's time of reign had expired within an hour after Yusuke left. Keiko made a ground plan between Genkai and Yukina to get to a phone near the train station to contact Shizuru for clothes and necessities. After their return to the temple, the women settled into their respective rooms- Ayame sharing with Keiko- and found sleep an easy goal to accomplish.

The next morning, Keiko extensively stretched before rising to dress in a spare pair of Yukina's pajamas while her clothes were being cleaned. As she cleaned herself up and prepared for the forthcoming day, Ayame arose and ignited casual banter with Keiko, "How long have you known Anu?"

"I've known him a long time," Keiko smiled, "almost all his life. So, I can't figure out what Anu means. Where does that come from?"

"Well, the Kekkai Barrier didn't always exist, you know. So before it was made, demons and ningens would go between worlds and mingle together. Sure it was usually violent but sometimes demons would get stories from the ningens. Sumerian mythology was one of the topics that were shared through these connections. Anu was the king of the gods, the god of demons and spirits," Ayame bashfully explained.

Keiko fascinatedly questioned, "Why do you associate Yusuke with a god?"

Ayame smiled, displaying her pointed teeth, "I just do. He saved me."

Keiko returned the child's beaming grin and suggested, "Let's go see if we can find something to eat."

"Ok, Anunit!" When Keiko's eyebrow rose in question, Ayame gleefully elaborated, "You see Anu was in love with Anunit. It only makes sense." Keiko offered a nod as the tiger demon shot up from her spot on the floor, "All right! I'm gonna go look for food while you finish brushing your hair."

Ayame pranced out of the room only to stop after a few steps when she heard a loud thud from Keiko's room and raced back to check up on Yusuke's fiancé, "Anunit?" Icy blue eyes grew to the size of the moon when she found Keiko crashed out on the floor. Heaving breaths thundered in her chest and her eyes were clenched shut when Ayame scampered to her. "Anunit? Anunit? " When the calls didn't bring Keiko out of her unheralded state, Ayame cramped her hands around Keiko's shoulders to lightly jar her, "Keiko! Keiko!" Ayame went ballistic when the veins in Keiko's neck darkened to many shades of black, "Genkai! _Genkai_, help! Yukina!"

Mere seconds elapsed before Yukina darted to Keiko's side, demanding, "What happened, Ayame?"

"I don't know! I don't know! I left the room and she was fine and I heard a thump and when I came back she was like this!" Ayame stated in a frenzy, "Help her! Help her!"

Yukina called out Genkai's name just as the weathered woman marched through the doorway, "What the hell's going on?"

Yukina was beside herself as she relayed, "Keiko was fine then she passed out." Yukina took another glance at Keiko and noted the ebony streaks branching around her neck, "Her veins are black, Genkai."

Genkai paced closer to the unconscious brunette to affirm Yukina's claim. Without another word, Genkai brought her hand over Keiko's head, palm settling on the girl's forehead, and ingeniously reverse-engineered her paralyzing touch. Instead of obstructing conductivity of the muscles to stop action potential in order to control the body, Genkai stimulated the muscles so she could get a reaction from the part of the body that caused Keiko's coma-like state. Genkai's hand didn't move as the elderly fighter waiting for the synapses around the muscles to react and alert her to what physically occurred to cause this condition. As she waited Genkai observed, "Someone has put an illness curse on her."

"Who would do such a thing? Keiko doesn't deserve something like this," Yukina worriedly wondered.

Genkai disconnected her hand from Keiko's forehead, "I think she's had a brainstem stroke. Her muscles contracted around her heart. She probably had a clot and it cut off blood from the brain. This was one hell of an illness hex. It's a good thing you saw the slabs of black in her veins or we would have never known it was an illness curse. There's not much else we can do but heal her at this point."

"Shouldn't we get her to a doctor instead?" Yukina lightly suggested.

"No. It will be the same difference if not better that we heal her," Genkai denied as she stood and went to work with her spirit healing. "If we both heal her we should be able to reverse the damage. It's a good thing we caught it so quickly or this could have had a difference epilogue."

Through tears, Ayame witnessed Yukina kneel beside Keiko and a thermal energy emit from the blue-haired demon's hands, "Is she gonna be ok?"

Genkai spoke up when she realized Yukina wasn't going to answer in fear of making a liar of herself, "She'll be fine." After well over ten minutes Genkai and Yukina ceased the energy-feeding channels. Keiko's breath was audibly less erratic than in her comatose state only seconds prior. With what Yukina and Ayame could have sworn was a sigh, Genkai recommended, "We better call the redhead."

Yukina was barely short of scratching her head, "How will Kazuma help us?"

"I mean the redhead that's not an idiot," Genkai deadpanned. "He might have a better clue of what's going on. I'm going to get to a phone."

Genkai stalked out of the bedroom, aware that Yukina didn't have to be told what to do to take care of Keiko, and made her way onto the primeval stairs in front of her temple. Once she was well out of sight of even the apex of the temple, her feet took flight out of, though she'd never admit it, consternation for Keiko's well-being. Near the boarding dock of the train station, Genkai unhooked the phone from its base and drew Kurama's number out of the rolodex in her mind.

After a few rings a gentle voice muttered, "Mother, I told you I can't make it to the dinner party."

"But, son, you can take what you don't eat and store it up like a fox does," Genkai mirthfully instructed.

Kurama chuckled and greeted, "Hello, Genkai. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Genkai's jaunting tone dropped, "Enough bullshit. Come to the temple. Keiko's had an illness curse put on her and we need to figure out who, what, when, where, and why."

"An illness curse?" Kurama stressed. "When-"

"Are you deaf, idiot? I just said I don't know," with that, Genkai hung the phone up.

On the other end, Kurama replaced the receiver onto the hook and made a swift dive for the door. He navigated to the train station with hot feet and purchased a ticket to the area of Genkai's property. Unbeknownst to either party, Shizuru, Botan, and Kuwabara were seated at the opposite end of the train Kurama resided on. It wasn't until the end of the ride, when people were standing up in preparation to get off the train, that Shizuru's tall stature allowed her to catch a glimpse of radiant red locks, causing her to shout, "Hey, Kurama!"

Kurama turned with perked attention, "Oh, hello, Shizuru. Did Genkai call you guys, too?"

Botan instantly inserted, "No, Keiko called Shizuru last night for clothes. Why would Genkai be calling us?"

Kurama fleetingly glanced out the window to find the train station near a complete stop, "Keiko has been cursed. I'm not sure exactly what's happening; only that it's not good. She didn't seem terribly alarmed so I'm sure Yukina and she healed whatever the illness curse caused but we still need to know the source of it in order to avert another curse in the future."

The fuss Yukina and Ayame were producing had fizzled out by the time Kurama, Botan, Shizuru, and Kuwabara made it to the landing in front of the temple. Genkai was relaxing on the anterior staircase, blatantly waiting on them to arrive, when Kurama began probing, "What precisely occurred?"

Genkai's gruff voice ground out as she stood up, "I'm pretty damn sure she had a brainstem stroke. So we healed her almost immediately and she's breathing fine and her vitals are normal now."

"That's one hell of an illness spell, if that is what it was." Kurama reiterated, "Are you sure she was cursed? What signs did you see?"

"The veins in her neck stained black," Genkai revealed as her arms crossed then she turned to make her way into the temple.

Kurama and the other visitors trailed the elderly woman into the room where Keiko was unconsciously laid out under a blindingly white sheet. Yukina was fawning over the brunette human when she caught wind of the minute group entering the ordinance room, "Kurama, thank goodness you're here! Surely you of all people can figure out where this curse came from so we can stop it from happening again."

Kurama marched to Yukina, Keiko, and Ayame, who was lachrymose on Keiko's lap, to stoop onto one knee and place a brotherly hand on the blue-haired ice demon's shoulder, "I can indubitably narrow down who sent the illness curse to Keiko. Only a handful of demons have enough clout with black mysticism to transcend the worlds and it still be so potent as to cause a stroke. In fact, I should be able to delineate the aura that accompanied the curse's energy channel, thus finding the demon that sent it. Really, it's already narrowed down to two demons that could give an illness curse that resulted in black veins."

Kuwabara, finally sick of playing spectator, intervened, "I didn't know Demon World had witches."

Ayame gravely deadpanned, "Is he serious?"

Kurama managed to offer a smile as Yukina attempted to explain, "They're not witches, Kazuma, they're definitely still demons. It's just that they have a greater connection to intentions and energy channels than most."

"So…" Kuwabara hesitated before nodding his head, "you're saying they're witches. Like the Wizard of Oz. Hey, are there good witches, too? Like ones that can fight the bad ones?"

Kurama patiently indulged, "Yes, there are those who practice only pure mysticism but they live in Spirit World."

Ayame interjected, "Stop humoring this stupid cunt and find out who did this to Anunit!"

Botan and Yukina looked taken aback as Genkai and Kurama only found flippancy in Ayame's exclamation. Kurama gaily took the lead out of the banter with Kuwabara and zoned in on sorting through Keiko's aura with his nose and energy. He was washed in repudiation when he found the traces of belladonna essence infused.

"She wouldn't have…" Kurama mindlessly droned. He shook his head and looked up, coincidentally meeting Shizuru's inquisitive eyes, "There are traces of belladonna in her aura, which means the demon that sent the curse had to have access to belladonna plants when invoking the spell. And the only belladonna in Makai is in the Cloud Forest...and only one soul would be able to get ahold of it and live to send an illness spell."

"That bitch!" Ayame scathingly growled and hopped to her feet beside Keiko's form. "That Azariah whore cursed Keiko!"

Kurama looked at Ayame in incredulity, "She and Keiko crossed paths?"

Ayame nodded in vigor, "Yes, and she told Anu not to let me or Anunit back into the Cloud Forest or she'd kill us!"

Yukina raised her hand as though she were in a classroom, "Who are we talking about?"

Kurama asininely interpreted, "Asdis Azariah."

"I'm still confused," Kuwabara declared in an annoyed tone, "how the hell can a demon magic attack someone into a stroke?"

Kurama sighed, "She would have gotten a rat, laid it on a slab, fed it belladonna, and slit its throat before it could die. Then she would inscribe the name of the victim with the rat's blood before removing the liver in order to-"

Kuwabara made a disgusted face, "Whoa, she sounds like a freak!"

"It's actually quite common practice amongst demons that use black mysticism." Kurama's eyebrow shot up and relaxed soon after when he corrected himself, "Except they usually just use poison to give the rat instead of belladonna. But Asdis has free admittance to those plants. After all, there's a reason her alias is The Belladonna."

Genkai made an effort to stop the palaver between friends when she observed, "We have to do something about her. There's no chance we can leave her to repeatedly curse Keiko until she successfully kills her."

Kurama's eyebrows furrowed, "There's no 'we,' Genkai. _I_ will deal with Asdis."

Botan blurted, "But shouldn't we tell Yusuke?"

Shizuru nearly nodded her head when Kurama snapped, "No! You can tell him that Keiko was cursed; you can even tell him Asdis did it. But you tell him that I took care of Asdis Gunnvor. And if Yusuke involves himself because you're incapable to relay a simple message, it'll be a bad situation." Botan looked shocked by Kurama's commanding tone but nodded nonetheless. The emerald-eyed hybrid then announced, "Keep an eye on Keiko and if she shows anymore symptoms, begin healing her immediately. I have some a shooting match to attend to."

Kurama dashed out of the temple without another word, leaving behind a mildly confused assortment of friends. It was high noon and his blood was roasting by the time he lumbered into the Cloud Forest. Sure he was in the dead center of the forest, Kurama bellowed, "Asdis! Asdis Gunnvor, come here right now!"

A few moments of silence and unresponsiveness passed before Kurama felt a rise from root to leaf within the plants that cluttered the earth. A carcinogenic voice breezed into his ear, "Why are you calling on me in such a disrespectful manner, Kurama?"

Kurama twirled around to link with Asdis's aurous eyes before scanning over her violet and malachite hair and colorless shoulders. His viridian eyes popped back to hers, "You look magnificent, love."

Asdis donned a slow smirk as she interrogated, "Did you do that on purpose?"

Kurama's eyebrow shot up, "What?"

"You're hair and eyes…" Asdis twirled the end of his flaming forelock, "did you purposefully take on the appearance of a rose when you were confined to this human container?"

"I didn't precisely have a say on my features when I was fighting for my life," Kurama smartly replied.

"Which wouldn't have happened if you would've stayed in my Cloud Forest with me like I suggested." Asdis waved her hand around to indicate his physicality as she teased, "Then you wouldn't have been cursed to this human form."

Kurama crossed his arms, "Speaking of curses…"

Asdis's eyes squinted indignantly, hands on hips instantly, "Are you accusing me of something?"

Kurama cut to the chase, "Why did you poison Yusuke's mate?"

"I did no such thing," Asdis scoffed. "I haven't cursed a ningen in-"

"In 600 years. That's what I thought but Keiko's veins were shaded with nuances of black and traces of belladonna where in the aura surrounding her. You're the only soul that has not only the qualification to send such a potent illness curse but have access to belladonna as well."

"Why would I waste my fortitude on cursing a woman that has yet to cross the line I've established for her?" Asdis's fists balled as she blistered, "You will not point your denunciatory finger at me when I have done nothing."

Kurama seemed to teeter on his feet before he announced, "I believe you, Asdis."

"I will help you find the culprit because I will not have some bastard using my trademark. Not to mention, this means someone was in my fucking Cloud Forest and someone besides me was touching my lovely belladonnas. I will not swallow that pill," Asdis commented as she turned away from Kurama after grabbing his hand to lead him through the coppice.

However, Asdis's focus was swiftly lost when she heard footfalls in the brush to her right. Kurama knew her intent immediately and locked his arms around Asdis's body from behind. The Belladonna began to violently squirm and claw at Kurama's forearms, leaving bloody lacerations in her wake but Kurama did not relinquish. Kurama affirmed, "I will not let you hurt her, Asdis."

Asdis thrashed as her voice took on a manly tone, "_Now_ she has crossed the line I established for her, you simpering yoko! Release me and I will partition her punishing decree!"

Keiko's shoddy voice shook out through the misty forest, "Kurama?"

"Yes, it is me, Keiko," Kurama avouched over Asdis's mannish growls and grunts in her struggle to break free, "do not seek me out."

Keiko disobeyed Kurama's direction and spun in a lethargic circle to find him, "Why not?"

"I am containing Asdis," Kurama faltered in his sentence as Asdis's dagger-like fingernails pierced the skin of his bicep. "You must get out of the forest, Keiko!"

A virile scream absconded from Asdis as she outstretched her hand in order to jam it behind her, entrenching her index and middle fingers from the tips to the knuckles in between the bones of Kurama's ribs. Kurama gasped from the unexpected stab and momentarily loosened his arrest on Asdis. She took full advantage of his weakness as she took a step forward then propelled from the ground with her bare foot to jab two fingers from each hand through his sternum and into his other ribcage. Kurama gave a slight cry, not very audible by any means, but loud enough for Keiko to catch it and for her feet to take flight. Keiko dodged trees and hurdled over bushes and brush as she fled. Though she wasn't sure which way to go and she couldn't see perfectly due to the fog, Keiko desperately searched for the entrance to the tunnels Yusuke had led her through the day before.

Asdis heard Keiko's hurried footsteps as she glided by and attempted to dive into the college student with the intent to exterminate her. Fortunately, Kurama was able to tackle her. Asdis was not pleased as she demonically growled and began savagely spearing her fingers through his neck while her other hand's fingers pierced the skin and bone underneath Kurama's left eye. Kurama took the pain in stride and yanked Asdis's fingers from his face and rolled her underneath him despite her relentless attack. Asdis howled, "I invoke thee, dark god, call thee by name. Incubus, enter my circle, I call you on this dark hour, to aid me in my dark deeds."

Kurama fastened his fingers on her wrists to wrestle her, "No, Asdis! Stop!"

Asdis kneed Kurama in the stomach and continued, "I invoke thee dark goddess, call thee by name. White Lady, enter my circle, I call you on this dark hour, to aid me in my dark deeds."

Kurama released one of her hands to cup his hand over Asdis's mouth. However, Asdis's canines sunk into his palm. Kurama's hand shot back and Asdis's fingers penetrated his wrist as she ground out, "Enchanting deities of the underworld, I call upon thee to help perform my evil deeds. Come at once, aid this dream of terror, come at once to bring her horror."

Kurama made an effort to stop Asdis's curse but the huldra crammed her belladonna-berry-dress-covered knee onto his throat after slamming him to the ground. She focused her mind and intent on Keiko as she pronounced, "Crawl inside her head deep in the night, bring her the dream I see so clear, bring her my dream of fright. She shall never forget this dream I made, let it stay with her until her grave. Now at once, travel the night, bring Yusuke's intended dreams of fright."

Keiko was cleared far and wide of the tussling demons but she couldn't resist running at terminal velocity to escape the Cloud Forest. Her breath was erratic and dwindling by the time she began to recognize her surroundings. As she navigated through the timberland, Keiko noted the increasingly bounteous amount of hanging moss and caught sight of something that soothed her heaving chest. A circular indention of dirt grabbed her attention from its place at her feet. She had found the tunnel passageway. She doubled over and dug her fingers into the loam and jacked the shrub and bark-covered lid up. Keiko staggered with the weight of the cap but managed to make enough room to slide onto the small staircase that led into the tunnels. She halted at the bottom of the stairs and inhaled shakily, mentally preparing herself to try and recall the way Yusuke had led them through the tunnels. As she walked away from the entry point, the light shrunk and she was lickety-split eclipsed in perfect darkness.

Kurama continued to tangle with Asdis despite being shrouded in blood and finger-induced stab wounds. Once Asdis no longer felt Keiko's essence in the Cloud Forest grounds, she relented and stooped to her knees beside Kurama once he sat on the cool soil. Asdis had regained her typical voice when she hissed, "How dare you, devil man. How dare you lay your hands on me when I do not wish it."

"I'm sorry, Asdis," Kurama idly apologized. "But I could not let you kill Keiko."

Asdis struck Kurama's face with an open hand before taking sympathy on the man she just brutally stabbed and assaulted. Asdis glared at Kurama before assuring, "I will heal you this time, Kurama, only because I love you. But rest assured, if you ever try such a foolish thing again, I will watch in amusement as you bleed." Asdis hovered her hands over a couple wounds at the time as she chanted, "Goddess that breathes life into demons, heal what I have pained and beaten."

Eventually, Kurama's injuries were cured and he was able to stand up to announce, "I must go after Keiko and supervise her as she sleeps."

"You will do no such thing," Asdis conjectured and impressed her fingers into his jaws, "you will stay here and fornicate with me."

"No, I won't, Asdis," Kurama backed away from Asdis. "I must go and supervise Keiko while she sleeps. I am leaving."

"You will not leave, Kurama. That human will either fight her faintheartedness or go insane trying."

"I can't allow that to happen, Asdis. I'm leaving."

"No, you aren't. You are going to have intercourse with me whether you like it or not. And I will have you, not this human container. Bring the yoko out so we can fuck or I will rip him out." Kurama tried to protest and circumvent her but Asdis acted too quickly, "I invoke thee, imp in the mind's expanse. Awake, arise, undertake your ghost dance. Invoke thee, Yoko Kurama, from your human cage to unveil your ingenerate self; I invoke Yoko Kurama to expose himself. I invoke thee. I invoke thee. I invoke thee like the fruit from the poisonous tree."

A lustrous iridescence plastered Kurama's body and Asdis watched as dazzling red hair bled into glossy silver and the emerald in his eyes sucked into the pupil like water into a drain only to be replaced with gold. The yoko in Kurama was brought forth and stared down at Asdis with his newfangled, additional height gained from his transformation, "Resorting to mysticism to bring me out, darling? How long has it been since you've bred?"

Asdis smirked and lay a hand on Kurama's ivory tunic, "You know I only breed with you, Fox."

"So, your rejoinder is about two hundred years," Kurama chuckled before his lips attracted to Asdis's, Keiko completely forgotten by his alternate form. "Funny. It seems as though you've used your mysticism to beguile this yoko."

Asdis ironically scoffed as her pasty arms around Kurama, "No, that's all me, Fox."

Keiko was in a panic in the catacombs as she trudged through the darkened, dank channels. Her hand trailed along the wall and the sound of her heaving breaths were deafening her, nearly driving her delirious. But she knew she couldn't let her trepidation defeat her. Tsuneo had arrived at the temple that morning to inform Yusuke's loved ones that he had been gravely injured in a fight, resulting in a near comatose state. Keiko didn't catch the details, she just ran out to a feeble and grousing Puu. The spirit beast flew her close to the Kekkai Barrier before collapsing. Tsuneo landed not far behind and Keiko made him commit to getting Puu back to the temple before rushing through the barrier. Keiko didn't know what happened to Yusuke but she knew she had to get to him; to certify that he was still alive. She just had to.

What she didn't know was that a demon had followed her into the catacombs.

Or that a two thousand year old huldra had just put a nightmare spell on her.


	6. In a Bad Way

The story of Alaric (dream sequence) is based on Chillingham Castle in Chillingham, Alnwick Northumberland, UK.

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. I do not own the manga/anime characters, plots, or creation.

**Miles and Miles of Regret**

**by TheKennethAnger**

Chapter 6: In A Bad Way

It was eventide by the time Keiko found an exit at the end of the nauseating catacombs. The two magenta moons shone a reddish luminosity that assorted with the dim gray sunlight over the countryside as she replaced the camouflage cover over the tunnels' entryway then surveyed her surroundings. Although the deep fuchsia of what was remaining of the daytime sky did not reflect the murky sunlight very well, Keiko could make out an imperative detail. Nothing was petrified. Keiko positioned one of her hands over her chest as she croaked out, "I went the wrong way."

Keiko assessed her state of affairs. She was alone in an unacquainted territory of Makai at nighttime. To add salt to the wound, she had fled Genkai's temple without her shoes and her feet were coated in scrapes and blood from sprinting through Mushiyori City, the fossilized rocks of the Barren Sea, and the vegetation of the Cloud Forest. She was nearly positive she wouldn't be able to walk another step until she could find some way to wrap her feet. Kurama had said he would make sure she was found but Keiko figured that even if the redhead could keep his promise, it would take an extensive amount of time for anybody to find her, especially since she had spent the better part of possibly three or more hours underground. Her thoughts were disturbed by a grating growl that soon distorted into a wail of pain and she rose to her feet to bolt, only to trip over a solid mass a few feet away. The primal howls ceased after only milliseconds after its birth, indicating an attacking demon had just been assassinated. Keiko was utterly gratified to counter a recognizable voice.

"What the hell are you doing here without Yusuke?"

Keiko barely had the energy to push up herself into a sitting position and pivot her head towards the virile voice. Her voice quaked as she brushed slack strands of her hair behind her ear, "Yusuke's seriously injured and I have to get to him. Will you help me, Hiei, please?"

Hiei offered no definite answer but his intentions were clear when he commanded, "Get up. You will stay in Alaric until the morning. Then you can be taken to Tourin."

Keiko knew Hiei was not one to propose sympathy and despite the sweltering aches in her feet, she arose with determination to trail him. Hiei instantaneously caught the limp in Keiko's step. At first he turned to leave her to her own devices but he couldn't discard the whimpers that streamed from her. Always quick to the punch, Hiei veiled his action of consideration as an action of impatient irritation, "With your humanistic limitations, it will take hours to reach Alaric. I refuse to waste my time in such a superfluous way. Climb on my back so we can get this over with."

Hiei immediately spun around to further illustrate his exasperation, even if it was feigned, which prevented him from witnessing the slight smile that passed over Keiko's lips. She knew this was Hiei's way of being nice. Keiko hobbled to Hiei and settled her hands on his shoulders once he stooped to the ground. Once she was secured to Hiei, they sailed away at a velocity that caused Keiko to shut her eyes. Night was in full swing by this time and everything she could see when her eyes occasionally cracked open was black dazzles skimming past. The fact that they were moving at the speed of light and that she was as close to Hiei as she was caused Keiko to feel anxious. She deduced because neither of those things had happened to her in the past. Another thing she eventually recognized as a preternatural event was that she was going to meet Mukuro. She only knew of Mukuro what Yusuke had told her but somehow she figured there would be a great deal more to a woman that could be within an arm's length of Hiei on a cyclic basis and not feel fidgety. Keiko had known Hiei for a couple years longer than Mukuro but she was evidently still less easy around him than the former king of Makai was.

Less than half an hour after they took to their greased lightning pace, a monumental structure was less than twenty feet away from them. The stained slate and hazel, solder walls took on a copper hue from the moonlight as they towered over the blackened trees nestled around it and the surrounding valley. The rectangular shape of the fortress gave it a lengthy appearance and from one end to another. No lights seemed to exist from inside the numerous windows. Mukuro's fortress reminded Keiko much more of a Human World gothic castle than a Makai fortress like Raizen's. Hiei slowed to trek up the stairs that led to the ingot door of Mukuro's fortress and he used little effort to kick it open. Once inside, Hiei kneeled to the floor to let Keiko off his back. She haphazardly dismounted to the black calacatta marble floor and stole a glance around. The lackluster décor was congruent to what Keiko would expect two pessimistic demons to reside in. Ebony vaulted ceilings were abundant and the two doorways visible were pointed arches, however, unlike a gothic castle in Human World, there was no extravagant craftsmanship or detail. The interior was a plain, pitch black mansion with a red velvet and oak wood chair near the black marble stairwell being the only furnishing. Keiko was brought back to actuality when Hiei slammed the door shut and announced, "Mukuro has just awoken. She will be down momentarily." Hiei placed his hands into the pockets of his cloak-esque jacket as he made his way past Keiko and again used his own idiom to offer compassion as he curtly recommended, "She's going to interrogate you so you may as well sit down on the chair or the floor; I really don't care which."

But that was as far as Hiei could make himself reach. This time he indeed refrained from helping Keiko as she staggered to the chair. By the time she was properly sitting down, sighing due to the sudden lack of pressure on her feet, Hiei had already climbed the stairs and disappeared into a hallway. Keiko acknowledged tremors pulsating through her body and her eyelids were ready to collapse, both bodily functions growing worse by the instant. After around fifteen minutes, Keiko's sick and tired tendencies vanished as she heard footsteps galumphing down the stairs. The human female first saw black slippers and bandages then loose, whitish blue pants with a red sash then a purple vest and bleached long-sleeved shirt as her eyes evenly moved to Mukuro's face. Keiko was somewhere between expectant and non-expectant to find a heap of auburn hair framing a half humanlike, half electromechanical-featured face. Keiko vaguely recalled Yusuke mentioning bionic aspects of Mukuro's physicality but she didn't exactly know what to expect. Now she knew.

"Hiei says you're Yusuke's prospective spouse," Mukuro cited with a sluggishness in her diction. Slightly unnerved by Mukuro's emotionless stare, Keiko only nodded. "Why were you wandering around Makai without him?"

Keiko's effete voice revealed, "His power has been drained and I was coming to-"

"You're a senseless little girl," Mukuro interrupted as she leaned with crossed arms against the wall adjacent to the stairs and opposite Keiko's location. "You didn't even know where you were going."

Keiko tried to give an explanation as she murmured, "All I know is that I have to get to Yusuke."

Mukuro's unresponsive facial expression was maintained even though a scoff slipped from her, "Hiei tells me he found you in the Necrosis Canyon. You were in the most savage territory of Makai and in the complete opposite direction of Tourin. Consider yourself a fortunate fool to make it out alive. Without the yoko, you'd be anthropoid potluck."

Keiko managed to conjure a smile, "Kurama told Hiei I was there?"

Mukuro impatiently tapped her foot as she divulged, "Kurama used the Cloud Forest bitch to contact Hiei to explain you had fled into the katakonbu tunnels and figured you would end up in the Necrosis Canyon or the Petrified Thicket. The Necrosis Canyon is closest to Hiei and me so that's where he went. I believe the fox contacted Yusuke's exceptionally annoying neck-bender to wait in the Petrified Thicket." Keiko began to ask another query but, again, Mukuro interrupted her, "You may hibernate here and Hiei will take you to Raizen's kingdom tomorrow morning." Mukuro's head snapped up towards the stairs as though someone said something to her and she tacked on the threat, "Or _he_ can take care of you until I find someone that will take you." Mukuro received no telepathic response from Hiei following her most recent statement and turned her attention back to Keiko, "Find any room that's not mine and reside there for the remainder of the night. Don't roam my fortress otherwise."

Keiko susurrated, "Which one is yours?"

Mukuro began walking up the stairs as she unobtrusively answered, "The only room in the tower."

In due time, Keiko hopped up the staircase with battered feet and tottered down adjoining hallways in search of a temporary resting place. Strangely, she found most of the clapboard doors to be locked. She ended up in (in relation to where the door they entered was) the back of the fortress by the time she found a room that was not only unlocked but also had the closest thing she was going to get to a bed. A granular, mauve duvet was pooled on the harsh marble floor and acted as the only entity that remotely resembled a bed. Keiko shut the door to the room and limped to the unkempt coverlet and lowered herself onto it with her hands in an attempt to relieve her feet. She ended up on her side and her nose caught the smell of blood, most likely on the duvet, but she couldn't care less. Painfully exhausted, all she could do was fall into the sandman's limbo with Yusuke lingering in her mind. Then Asdis's nightmare curse shifted full throttle.

She woke with a start and wordlessly yelled when she found a demon towering over her. She rolled off the filthy duvet and scattered to her feet. The colossal demon surged towards her and she began back peddling until her backside hit the far wall. The demon's skin was tinged pale indigo and a chalky mane spread over the outline of his face as his pure ivory eyes gleamed in the dark room. He was in black robes with violet embroidery that seemed endless due to his overwhelming height. The snarl that displayed his rows of shark-like teeth immobilized Keiko, especially when they moved as he spoke, "Do you know what's taken place in this fortress?"

Concerned for her safety, Keiko thought it best to answer, "N-no…no."

"Whoever dares enter does not leave, stupid girl," the demon proclaimed. "Men, women, and children have sung their death songs in this fortress. The torture chamber is just two stories below this very room. An iron maiden, thumb screws, boiling pots, a bed of nails, branding irons, and a rack are all located beneath your feet, silly ningen. You think you are safe here? Mukuro is a sadistic butcher and has been for centuries. And that little Forbidden Child?" The demon expressed an off-color laugh, "He's become just as bloodthirsty as her." The demon fell to its hands and knees with a crackling sound as it crawled towards Keiko. She felt tears buoy to the brims of her eyes as the demon basically crawled up her pajama-clad legs and twisted into the seam of her shirt, as though it were groveling for her to listen. "The floor, young lady, the floor is slanted so the blood and other fluids flood into a trench. The smell alone could drive you mad."

In her peripheral vision, Keiko witnessed another demon slithering up through the floor. It had the characteristics of a female with long raven hair that sprouted in many directions and bloody fissures stretched over her face. As the demon's blood-soaked cloak moved when she reached out to wrap her hands around Keiko's throat, the brunette saw the same fissures occupied her hands. The demon croaked, "Didn't you notice the man at the doorway of this castle, you wretched girl? Mukuro hired him to kill fifty creatures a day by torture until she had him pulled apart limb from limb while he was still alive for entering her bed chamber. Don't you know these things? You must escape that beast and her minion. Do what you must."

The demon that had latched onto Keiko's clothes shook her and wailed, "Yes, you must escape these slaughterers and their devil's lair!"

Without Keiko realizing it, another demon that stood on the opposite side of her as the female demon roared into her ear, "You will hear the children screaming in agony. You will hear the mystics begging for death. Their mutilated bodies will pass before your eyes. You will go mad." The demon's face and mouth could not be seen as it lamented, "Unless you eradicate them."

The female demon thundered as her fingers tightened around Keiko's neck, "Yes! Eradicate her and her right hand man! Eradicate the enemy, you simple-minded girl!"

The demon at her feet shook Keiko more violently, causing the back of her head to slap against the wall, "Kill her, ningen! Kill Mukuro! Kill Mukuro and Hiei quickly or you will be slain like the children!"

The demon that Keiko could not see elaborated, "Slayed the children? They _ate_ the children raw! Only the survivors, with chunks of their flesh missing, were sentenced to be slain! Kill them before they eat you alive!"

Keiko felt nails bury into her stomach and spine as she was strangled and shaken. All her tormentors bellowed, "Kill Mukuro! Kill Hiei! Eradicate! Eradicate! Eradicate!"

Keiko began violently flailing to fly the coop and after a few minutes of their incessant endorsements and physical assaults, she broke herself free from their hold. She skipped over the duvet, the lacerations on her feet forgotten, and flung the door open. She skidded into the hallway and blindly scrammed into the recesses of Mukuro's castle, no longer of sound mind.

It had been sometime over an hour and a half after Hiei had returned with Keiko to Mukuro's castle that he received a critical memo from Kurama. With curses towards his best friend flying out of his mouth, Hiei stalked to Mukuro's room and unfastened the door without hesitancy, "Mukuro, that stupid fox just told me something profoundly influential."

Sitting in the chair across from her bed, Mukuro peered over her shoulder at Hiei and humored, "Oh, really? And what's that, Hiei?"

Hiei stomped into the room and banged the door shut, "Remember how I thought it was bizarre the huldra was giving me a message from Kurama instead of the idiot himself? Well, apparently that's because they were having intercourse and in order to persuade him into continuing, she sent the message herself and left out the charming fact that she put a fucking nightmare curse on Yusuke's woman. Now that Kurama has finished his little escapades he obviously found out she didn't transmit that part of the fucking message and contacted me. And now the ningen is gone."

Mukuro scoffed as she arose from her chair, "What an imbecile. Why can't males ever think without their penis in the equation?"

One of Hiei's eyebrows rose, "Probably the same reason why females can't think without feelings in the equation. Case in point: the fucking cursed ningen in your fortress."

Mukuro trod to Hiei to take him by the shoulders and spin him towards the door. She then shoved him towards it as she rumbled, "Enough palaver. Go find her."

Hiei scolded, "Yes, this isn't a damn _fort_ress or anything. Get off your lazy ass and help. I'll go to the west end and you go to the east."

Mukuro agitatedly sighed, "F_i_ne." As a side note, Mukuro grumbled, "She better not be in my lab."

After a shakedown of the separate ends of the fortress, Hiei and Mukuro communicated that they neither one had found her. Mukuro then spun on her heel and clomped down the staircase that led to the relative front of her abode and Hiei was beside her in a flash. He could practically smell her rage, though he was not sure if it was directed at Keiko or Kurama. He deduced the only place left for Keiko to have fled to, was Mukuro's workshop. Knowing that she was vigilant of the equipment used on the bionic parts of her body and her restorative machineries kept in the basement, Hiei wasn't surprised when Mukuro gritted her teeth as she ramblingly spoke, "She is in my goddamn lab."

Hiei dashed to the grout door that gave entry into Mukuro's lab only to find it wide open, exposing the downwardly-angled stairwell that was lit by hanging oil lamps. Comprehending Mukuro would be only a few instances behind him if he didn't act Hiei darted down the stairs to make sure Keiko had not harmed any paraphernalia in her nightmare-hazed wake. He found Keiko hunched up in a corner of the lab with her hands over her eyes and shouting, "Please just leave me alone! Stop chasing me!"

Hiei didn't honestly know how to solve this dilemma but he chose to call out, "Woman, nobody is chasing you."

Keiko's hands were still sheltering her eyes as she beseeched, "If you're trying to save me why did you chase me into the dungeon?"

Hiei's eyes narrowed when he tried to confirm, "This isn't an oubliette."

Hiei noted that Mukuro was traipsing down the stairs as she demanded, "Hiei, do a reversal spell on that piteous human and get her out of my lab!"

Hiei glided to Mukuro as she started towards Keiko and latched onto her wrist to stop her. The furious demon lord turned to him as he asserted, "She just needs to be woken up."

"You can't awaken someone under a nightmare hex without a reversal, you moron," Mukuro informed with challenge in her eye.

"Well, fuck, Mukuro, I don't know any reversal spells," Hiei shot back.

"Then you better get a hold of her, asshole, because I want her out of my lab _now_," Mukuro replied indignantly, "and you do not want me to be the one removing her."

Hiei discarded Mukuro's insult as he paced to Keiko's huddled mass and grasped her shoulders, shaking her particularly lightly, "Woman, you're not in a dungeon. Wake up before Mukuro loses her shit."

As Keiko's hands fell from her eyes, she spotted a 7 gage, steel syringe on one of the two metal tables in Mukuro's lab and heard the demon whose face she hadn't seen growl, "Eradicate. Do it to them before they do it to you."

Keiko's mind's eye then looked upon Hiei and knew what had to be done. Keiko's hand shot to Hiei's waist and, before he could react, unsheathed his katana. After yanking it back, she proceeded to shove the pointed tip in the direct aim for Hiei's stomach. Luckily, Hiei had regained his wits and dodged her blow, though still receiving a nick around his ribs. Though Keiko was, for lack of a better word, hypnotized by this nightmare, Hiei lavished no time before clutching forcefully onto the blade of his sword. His hand was instantly, but mildly, sliced but he paid no mind as his free hand crunched around both of hers, which were clasped together around the hilt. He then tore the sword from her hands, re-sheathing it with only one hand, and wrung his other bloody hand into the sleeve of her t-shirt. With this hold on her, he yanked her forward and irately bellowed, "Keiko! Wake the fuck up!"

Luckily, a reversal spell was cast once Keiko began kicking at Hiei's ankles, "Turn around and about; once again to the dreary start. Where there existed no fantastic hex, revert to the vapid part."

Keiko's limbs dropped with the last word of the incantation and her head lolled as though she had a narcoleptic fit. Hiei turned to find Kurama halfway down the stairs, holding a burning incense stick and pouring a thick concoction of frankincense, vanilla, rosemary, and sage oils from an urn all over the stairs at his feet. Mukuro was ready to pounce on Kurama for withholding vital information about a nightmare hex coming into her castle but found herself clinching her fingers together behind her back when Hiei beat her to it. Hiei threw his katana directly at Kurama and clamored, "You gullible idiot!"

Kurama simply hopped like a rabbit onto the step a few above the one Hiei's blade wedged into, "My apologies, Hiei." Kurama tugged at his flaring red locks and elucidated, "I wasn't myself at the time."

Hiei derided, "Just admit you were outwitted by a reclusive black mystic's vulva, you stupid fox. Why the hell would you trust her to convey a message about one of her own hexes?"

Kurama eluded answering Hiei's scathing inquiry as he overstepped the smaller demon's katana to romp down the stairs, "It's not like you could have done anything about it anyway. You know nothing of value about black mysticism."

Hiei scolded in accompaniment with an extravagant gesture of his hand towards Keiko, "I sure as hell could have kept her awake until we found somebody that does."

Kurama kneeled in front of Keiko to check her for wounds and gibed at Hiei, "Like who? Shigure? I'm sure he would have been contributive."

"He surely would have been more conductive than you," Hiei ridiculed as he went to retrieve his sword. "At least that damned doctor wouldn't help send a curse just because he's been sexually deprived for twenty years."

To Mukuro's entertainment and resentment, Kurama jeered as he lifted Keiko's face to inspect, "Now, now, Hiei. _You_ more than anyone know I haven't been sexually inactive since I've had this body."

Hiei's crimson-dusted cheeks kindled and he caught Mukuro's investigative gaze before he diverted the subject, "Just get Yusuke's female to Tourin! She's caused enough fucking botheration for Mukuro and me, with your help no less."

Kurama countered Hiei's order with a tall one of his own, "Regrettably, you will have to help me, Hiei."

Hiei snorted, "Hn. The hell I will."

Kurama rose to his feet, turning to Mukuro and Hiei in the process, and proceeded to raise the hem of his black button-up shirt. Hiei was shocked to find profoundly announced gashes and stab wounds littering his chest. There were precise holes decorating his ribcages, his stomach, and his chest, all percolating blood like rivers of rubies and flowing against the waistline of his khaki pants. After only a few seconds, Kurama drew his shirt down and grinned halfway, "I can assure you that same category of wounds are plastered over the rest of my body. So you must cognize I feel a bit frail at the moment and doubt I can make it to Tourin with the extra weight."

Hiei almost, _almost_, snickered as he commented, "Are you sure you slept together?"

Catching Hiei's jaunty tone, Kurama returned it, "Asdis cannot uncomplicatedly be convinced to refrain from killing someone she already had a death instinct against. I was simply reminded of this."

"In other words, she's a cunt."

Hiei and Mukuro's lines of vision popped towards the squeaky voice that sliced through Kurama and Hiei's banter. Ayame sat towards the apex of the stairs with cuts that spiraled connectedly around her neck and forearms, bloody and fresh like Kurama's wounds. Asdis's vicious vines had given the little spirit quite the swindling workout.

Mukuro only had one thing to say, "So now we have the ningen and two more unsolicited guests in my lab. How do you propose we fix this problem? Anybody?" Hiei's eye twitched as Mukuro turned to cross the workshop and scale the stairs. As she did so, she halted on a step close to Ayame and Mukuro found a morsel of empathy for the mangled tiger apparition but still callously dictated, "Out of my lab now."

Knowing who Mukuro was, Ayame complied without protest and sprang up the stairs. Once the two female demons were out of the room, Hiei twirled back to Kurama. The redhead intended to explicate with narration but a sabering pain struck his side, causing his speech to halt and his hand to propel against his side. Hiei vicariously responded by waltzing to one of the tables of the lab and tossing a spool of binding to Kurama for his wounds. Kurama effortlessly caught the rolled-up bandages with a reserved, "Thanks, Hiei. Give me that other one for Keiko's feet."

The smaller demon picked up a second role of bindings, placed them in Kurama's hand, then made his way to Keiko and forklifted her into his arms, "Wait until we're out of the tyrant's lab." As he made his way towards the stairs, he heard Kurama following him and unflinchingly put Kurama through the wringer, "So, educate me, Kurama, was it mandatory for you to mention our trysts to Mukuro?"

Kurama only tittered and opined, "I do love brewing trouble."

"There's such a thing as overkill, you pretentious fuck," Hiei denounced as he briskly climbed the stairs.

Knowing that Hiei was still fuming Kurama didn't delve any further into the subject of their intimate history and ghosted Hiei's movements. Once they were out of the lab, Hiei kicked the mortar door shut and went straight through the spacious front room of the fortress into a more compact room parallel to the master staircase. In the neighboring room, a piece of furniture that resembled a loveseat that was loosely covered by a red, crushed velvet canvas resided in the far left corner. Hiei deposited Keiko's sleeping form onto the chaise lounge only moments before Ayame bounded into the room then hurdled onto the back of the loveseat. Ayame eyeballed Keiko as though investigating if she were truly alive. Hiei crossed his arms and turned to Kurama, "Who's the gremlin?"

Kurama laughed at Hiei's reference towards Ayame despite the protestation radiating from his chest, "Her name's Ayame. Yusuke liberated her from the rebels and has been watching over her until recently." Mukuro's incisive hearing picked up that the small tiger demon had been a victim of the rebels causing her to march through a slew of cavernous rooms towards her visitors. Kurama knew she was approaching as he continued, "But he sent her with Keiko to Genkai's temple to keep them safe. But once Keiko fled on Yusuke's spirit beast, Ayame chased after her."

Ayame cut into the conversation, "Some messenger came and said Anu's life force had been drained."

When Mukuro entered the room she too entangled herself in the tête-à-tête, "You were contained by the rebels?" Still dreadful of Mukuro, Ayame only nodded then climbed onto Keiko's stomach, as though seeking security. Mukuro then cross-examined, "Do you know why they were disfiguring you?"

Ayame looked up at Mukuro with pristine eyes and bumbled, "Nuh uh."

Kurama was bewildered when Mukuro's shotgun of questions became invasive, "How witless are you, infant? They had to say _some_thing about why they were mutilating you. Or are you too insensible to pay attention to your captors? Answer me! You mean to tell me you didn't observe a single fucking thing of value-"

"Mukuro, that's enough," Hiei curtly established as he grabbed her shoulder to turn her towards him. Hiei didn't have to say anything else and Mukuro didn't need to respond. He knew her past was the origin of her escalating anger and that she was frustrated by the type of endemic befalling Makai. He also knew she was most enraged that she had been unable to put an end to it. On the other side of the road, Mukuro knew Hiei was trying to stop her from needlessly brutalizing a small child that had endured the pain and degradation of having her body's sacred parts mutilated. But Mukuro was becoming frustrated that none of the women and girls that had been harmed could tell her anything about their brutalizers. At one point a couple weeks prior, Hiei tried to make her comprehend that not all women were as fierce or tenacious as her and the last thing on their minds while being tortured was to weed out information. It was fairly obvious that the girls and women that were taken prisoner were not fighters, therefore not skilled in the art of meticulous observation which came in handy during battle (in this case, during captivity). Life was not a perpetual war for most females as it had been for Mukuro.

Hiei fixed his eyes with Mukuro's mismatched ones for a solid minute as they had a mental confrontation. When Mukuro decided Hiei was being the reasonable figure in the situation, animosity filled her. As per usual, Hiei didn't know if she was furious at him or herself when she used her left hand to constrict the front of his throat to create a pivot to push him back. She then made a 180 turn and trooped out of the room without another word. Adhering to a prearranged routine, Hiei rapidly became incensed by Mukuro's hostility towards him as he stomped in the opposite direction of Mukuro, also exiting the room. Kurama elected to follow Hiei after instructing Ayame to stay with Keiko and clean her feet. The fox apparition waited until he trailed Hiei out of a window towards the back of Mukuro's fortress- far away from where the demon lord and Ayame were- to speak, "Mukuro seems vitalized about females being sexually maltreated. Any rationalism in that?"

Hiei didn't even turn towards Kurama as he trudged towards the wildwood that lined the castle grounds, "Mukuro's rationale is none of your goddamn business, you meddlesome incendiary." Knowing Kurama didn't honestly expect an answer, Hiei turned the subject, "How did that Cloud Forest witch doctor get the upper hand?"

Kurama couldn't help but chuckling before prodding, "You know, that's what Kuwabara called her."

Hiei fleetingly looked over his shoulder with narrow eyes, "Don't try to make it seem like I have any common ground with that inane oaf. I may retch on your gaudy shoes."

"Just trying to keep you engaged," Kurama remarked as the two demons reached the outer brim of a basin in the forest.

"Fine," Hiei scoffed, "you want me engaged? Let's begin with what the huldra used to stab the shit out of you."

Once Hiei and Kurama were in the low point of the basin, the redhead took a seat on the colossal buttress root of a cedar tree. Hiei knew this was Kurama's way of saying he needed to sit down and dress his wounds with the bindings given to him. Hiei acknowledged this information only by shooting up to a branch well above Kurama to sit with his back against the trunk. Kurama removed his shirt to start the troublesome process of wrapping the worst of his injuries as he casually answered, "Her fingers." Kurama guessed Hiei was expecting the undiminished epic so he continued, "Yusuke took Keiko and Ayame through the Cloud Forest where they intercepted Asdis and she told him she'd kill them if they were to return. The next day Keiko turned out to be cursed. Her veins streaked black and there were traces of belladonna in the aura around her. I had to presume Asdis was the mystic behind the hex and traveled to confront her. I wasn't exclusively convinced she was the one accountable for it despite the evidence and when she denied referring the curse, I knew she was being honest. After all, when Asdis does her malicious deeds she takes pride in it. She offered assistance in finding the culprit then caught Keiko running through the forest. So I had to stop Asdis from killing Keiko. We fought but once Keiko was gone, she restored my wounds."

Hiei suspended Kurama's tale, "From what I've heard of the huldra, she doesn't practice pure mysticism."

Kurama's voice came out with an aggrieved tone as he swathed bandages around his ribs, "She usually doesn't. But Asdis Gunnvor has an exposed nerve for me."

Hiei uninterestedly stated, "I thought her name was Asdis Azariah."

Kurama reacted with an equally disinterested tone, "That's her name to the people she doesn't know personally. Meaning to everyone except me and her deceased mother. Asdis Gunnvor is her given name but she doesn't like Gunnvor used by the masses because it means cautious. She was only 67 years old when she decided it was unbecoming of her and began telling people it was Azariah to indicate she's divine."

"What a swollen-headed shrew," Hiei mocked as his ankles and arms crossed.

Kurama inwardly giggled and gave a smile though Hiei couldn't see it, "She is. But when we met I was rather vain myself."

Hiei interjected, "Still are."

Kurama bound the wounds on his inner wrist as he brushed off Hiei's accusation, "No more than you, Hiei." Hiei merely made a sneering noise before Kurama resumed his story, "After she healed my damages, we had sexual contact. An hour or so into it-" Hiei again scoffed, "-Ayame ran through the forest. I know that Asdis didn't want Keiko in the Cloud Forest because in the times before the Kekkai Barrier ningens would destroy parts of it in the name of avarice, so she holds it against them. But I still can't infer why she so vehemently refused to allow Ayame into the forest. Regardless of the reason, she manipulated vines to ensnare Ayame because she didn't plan to let her get away like Keiko did." Kurama reservedly sniggered, "Luckily I was already on top of her so I was able to pin her down. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that Asdis's curses are heartless but if she gets her hands on you, you're a corpse. Well…unless you're me. Nonetheless, she fought me and after perhaps half an hour and near paralysis on my part, Ayame finally gnawed her way out of the vines and fled. Afterwards, Asdis refused to heal me again since I challenged her authority thus her respect twice in the same day."

Hiei taunted Kurama, "And she managed to make all those lacerations and punctures before you thought it best to stop her?"

Kurama verbally sparred, "I suppose it was foolish. Almost as foolish as when you blabbed hot at Kaito." Hiei didn't vocally respond but leaned over to peer down at Kurama with narrowed eyes before sitting up straight once more. Kurama grinned to himself and illuminated, "You must understand, Hiei, that I've never had the intention to harm Asdis and I tremendously doubt I ever will. Restraining her is one thing but wounding her is another."

"So it's roses in your book if she spears her fingers through your fucking ribcages but it's a transgression to hurt her?" Hiei slung his legs over the side of the branch he resided on, landing on a part of the buttress root, and looked at Kurama to deride, "And here I was thinking you were feasibly the most intelligent creature I've ever met."

Kurama grinned at the accolade and, having run out of bandages, tugged his shirt back on, "Asdis is treasure to me, Hiei. In every sense of the word. She is a treasure in the sense of being precious to me but she is also a treasure I can't quite seem to thieve even after a millennium."

Hiei almost didn't oust his assumption but took care to add a snarl in, "By way of explanation, you mean you love her, as the stupid ningens would say."

Kurama boldly ratified, "By all means."

Hiei felt a jag of jealousy when he commented, "I'm surprised you say that considering the fact that she would kill your human mother without a moment's hesitation."

Kurama made it to his feet before somewhat irately correcting, "Asdis would not harm what is so dear to me."

"Yes, just as she refrained from cursing Keiko," Hiei sneered.

Kurama's emotional temperature rose as he turned the tables, "How is it any different than your love for Mukuro? She would kill me in an instant if given the right provocation."

Hiei stomped away from Kurama, as though he were dismissing him, but couldn't contain himself as he turned around again, "I do not _love_ Mukuro."

Kurama wasn't deterred by the venom dripping from Hiei's tongue as he grunted 'love' like a dying curse, "You most certainly do."

"That's the most senseless assertion I've ever heard. I cannot love Mukuro, just as I could never love you. I am incapable of such frivolous sentiments."

Kurama calmed as he sighed, "No, you aren't, Hiei. You beyond doubt love Yukina. And I know you love me." Kurama continued as Hiei's wine-colored eyes slumped towards the ground but the smaller demon made no remonstration, "I also know that _you_ know I love you and will until hell freezes over. But I love Asdis on an utterly different sphere just as you love Mukuro on an utterly different sphere." Hiei turned his back on Kurama and began to tread through the forest but Kurama wasn't having him walk away, however, and followed suite. "It doesn't make you weak."

"Stop lecturing me, Kurama," Hiei ticked. "I know what's in my head; you don't."

Kurama laughed with the accusation, "Mukuro does, too."

Hiei scoffed and crossed his arms as he strode through the forest, "Which is only true because she has psychic muscles. That does not mean I love her."

"Well she sure as hell loves you," Kurama smartly asserted.

Hiei snorted to himself, fleetingly looked back at Kurama, and then ridiculed, "How many more outrageous claims will you make today, Kurama?"

"Hiei, I've seen many things through the course of my existence and your denial is the most spectacular," Kurama hooked a hand onto Hiei's shoulder to stop the fire demon in his tracks and spin him around. "You and Mukuro are made of the same clay. And the sooner you admit that, the sooner you will find the contentment I think you deserve."

Hiei stepped back to move out of Kurama's grip, "Hn. Ignorant fox."

Once the two men made their way back to the fortress grounds Kurama caught sight of Mukuro peering out a window from the tower. To serve as a catalytic agent to prove his point about Hiei and Mukuro's relationship, Kurama called out, "Hiei."

When Hiei twisted his head towards Kurama, the red-haired hybrid cupped his hands on either side of Hiei's neck before he melded their lips together. While Kurama could only focus on how tall Hiei had grown in comparison to his former size, Hiei's mind focused on what Kurama's motive could have been. The kiss didn't last more than a few seconds but when Kurama felt Mukuro's energy rise inside the tower, he knew he had accomplished his objective and cut off all physical connection with Hiei, "You'll thank me one day." Kurama walked pass Hiei and declared, "We can take Keiko to Tourin now or in the morning. You choose."

Hiei didn't notice any change in the aura surrounding Mukuro since he had no intent of it and shrugged, "In the morning. Your antics have exhausted me."

The pair started towards the castle when a brash clank resonated through the forest. Kurama pretended to not even notice as Hiei's head shot upwards, eyes straightaway connecting with the tower. Kurama continued his oblivious pretense as he kept on his path, smiling to himself when Hiei basically took flight for the window Mukuro had been peering out of moments ago. Hiei quickly realized the kiss was one of Kurama's Machiavellian plans when the fox demon disregarded the clamor from Mukuro's chamber. Kurama knew Mukuro had been looking. Hiei was seething by the time his feet touched down the window ledge and pushed the casement window to step into Mukuro's bedroom. She had thrown a carved brass incense burner so harshly against the wall that it managed to somehow rupture into hundreds of pieces on the floor. He couldn't locate her but knew she was still in the room because the door was still bolted, "Mukuro?"

"Beat it," Mukuro commanded with a Bronx cheer in her voice.

Tracing her voice, Hiei traipsed to the wall opposite him and turned to lean against it, linking his eyes with Mukuro's face as she sat with bent legs in the shape of an L with her back supported by the backside of the chair Hiei usually occupied. Hiei kept his composure as he reasoned, "Are you honestly throwing a bitch fit because Kurama kissed me for two seconds?"

Mukuro bounded to her feet and before much longer, her closed fist linked with Hiei's nose. A popgun sound resonated through the bedchamber but Hiei managed to merely stumble back a few steps and maintain his footing. Blood swarmed out of his nostrils but he gave no other sign that he'd been hit, not even a transformation in facial expression. Mukuro stomped up to Hiei and stood eye to eye with him- something she had been able to do since he was finally only half an inch shorter than her- and her teeth barred as she seethed, "My heart is a weapon of war, Hiei. If I were you, I wouldn't want to test it." Hiei smeared his hand below his nose to launder the blood streaming there but didn't break eye contact. But he refrained from commenting despite the furor in his vocal chords begging to break off the cuff. Hiei's lack of response further enraged Mukuro and she raised her fist again. However, this time, Hiei's hand shot out and he enclosed her wrist. There was a moment of lingering eyes and rigidity before Mukuro foamed at the mouth, "You know, I feel sorry for you, Forbidden Child. I feel sorry you lost your parents but I'm glad they didn't have to meet you."

Hiei took a sharp inhale before aggressively shoving Mukuro's hand away, "At least one of my parents wanted me." Hiei felt rapid oxidation burning up his heartstrings as he jeered, "And just so you know, I will always have a libidinous taste for Kurama." _Well she sure as hell loves you_. Hiei then cruelly decided to take aim at her soul as he proclaimed, "I will always _love_ Kurama and you will never change that."

As the last word left Hiei's lips, he hammered Mukuro's bedroom door behind him as he left her bedroom. He stood outside of Mukuro's door for a moment but when she didn't come after him, be it to make peace or war, Hiei marched down the spiraling tower stairs. He was furious but wounded when he entered the room where Kurama was attending to Keiko's feet with Ayame nearby. Hiei sounded like his standard detached self to Ayame and the semi-awake Keiko when he besieged, "We're going to Tourin now."

Kurama knew something was off pronto but agreed nevertheless, "Alright."

With little more said, Hiei was rambling out the fortress's door with Keiko in his arms and Kurama and Ayame narrowly trailing him. The ache in Mukuro's eye preyed upon Hiei as he and his company ran at super luminosity speeds and arrived at Tourin within a couple hours. Once they were within the parameters of Raizen's kingdom, they slowed to a customary pace and Keiko was fully roused, asking for Hiei to set her on the ground. Hiei enthusiastically obliged and dropped her legs then severed contact leaving Keiko to tread between him and Kurama. They encountered Seitei after a few minutes and Kurama took the reins in the debriefing, "Seitei, where's Yusuke?"

"Lord Yusuke is in the fortress in his bed," Seitei staidly answered.

Kurama returned the tone, "How is he faring?"

Seitei briefly floundered before finally clearing his throat and confirming, "He has not made any progression."

Keiko felt the nerves seism throughout her body. The tremors assailed her toes and whirled up her legs, bleeding through her body until her fingers were trembling and her teeth were near chattering. Her hair was entangled and her eyes were crepuscular as she made her way past the men and Ayame, only focusing on the open balcony that led into Yusuke's room. She found herself powerwalking towards the fortress, utterly ignoring the pain in her feet and Hokushin and the couple other people that tried to speak to her, with a picture of Yusuke's face battering her conscience. Without even noticing, Keiko was racing towards the moth-eaten stairs and irregular plaintive cries were catching in her throat. Before long she was skipping stairs rapider than her heart was skipping beats. There was a male and female in the corner furthest from Yusuke, a pair of naturopaths Keiko assumed, and as she turned out of the stairwell found her knight errant.

Yusuke was arranged on the rounded bed, underneath the slate covers from the waist down, and his left arm pulled away from his body. His mouth was slightly agape and the muscles in his face were totally placid as his disarrayed, ebony hair fell in salved pieces around it. There were voluminous contusions adorning his neck and clavicles but he seemed unscathed otherwise. Keiko couldn't formulate a competent thought until her fingers were brushing through Yusuke's grungy hair. She was still quaking but that didn't stop her from outlining her free fingers over his bruises as her other hand came to a knotted halt in his hair. "Oh, Yusuke," Keiko lamented in low tones. She took a moment to address the tenants on the other side of the room, "Will I hurt him if I have extensive contact?" When the demons shook their heads, Keiko clambered onto the bed and settled on Yusuke's right side, the right half of her body covering the right half of his, and her head rested beside his. Her fingertips drilled into the unclad skin over his abdomen as her other hand and arm was crushed under her body. With her lips next to Yusuke's ear, Keiko murmured, "Please come around."

Ayame arrived in the room not long after this statement and instantaneously ruptured to tears. Her blue quartz eyes shifted between Keiko and Yusuke as she made her way to the bed, scrambled over the edge, and curled into a miniature ball beside Yusuke's left calf. After a few more prolonged minutes, Kurama and Hiei were in the doorway looking destitute. Then Kurama's countenance shifted faster than the winds of a hurricane. He rotated and latched onto the elbow of Hiei's sleeve to lead him down the stairs, discharging his clutch on Hiei halfway down the flight of steps, and about a hundred feet away from the anterior entrance of the fortress before speaking. The redhead requested, "I need you to use the Jagan to open a psychic frequency with Asdis." Hiei gave him an incredulous look, prompting Kurama to elaborate, "I can't believe I didn't surmise before. We would be capable of refunding Yusuke's energy had it been demonic or spiritual, correct?" Hiei only raised an eyebrow in sanction, "Well since we cannot return natural life energy, we will need an outside determinant. And-"

Hiei groaned, "Can you just cut to the fucking point, Kurama?"

Kurama put his hands on his hips, "_The point_ is the Kuro Mahou Tome of the Akuma."

"As in the folkloric, chimerical Kuro Mahou Tome of the Akuma that was supposed to be a fourth dark artifact of the Vault thousands of years ago? I've got bad news-"

"It's not mythological, Hiei," Kurama amended. He exposed with a smirk, "Asdis stole it from Reikai's Vault when she was 82 years old. Who do you think I learned to thieve from? She hid it in a trip-wired burrow in the Necrosis Canyon for 918 years until she seized the Cloud Forest. She moved it to the Cloud Forest but in those first hundred years, when demons didn't yet know not to intrude, she decided to move it. But Asdis never left the Cloud Forest again and left the tome in an esoteric site; she's never told even me where it was put to rest. It's been there for 922 years and nobody's sited it. Therefore, I intensely doubt I could ever find it and will need to ask Asdis individually."

Hiei rolled his eyes, "If I recall properly, you imperially pissed her off. Why would she reveal such information?"

Kurama's lips assumed an overconfident smile as he divulged, "Now, now, Hiei, you will see that she melts for me."

Hiei offered an embellished groan as he ripped his binding from around the Jagan, "Concentrate feeding your youkai into the Jagan or you won't be able to talk to her directly. I can't take enough of your youkai to focus the channel while I have to find hers at the same time."

"Thank you, Hiei."

"Shut up and fucking focus."

Kurama said nothing more and began feeding his energy into a synthesis with the Jagan's puissance. Within a couple minutes, Kurama perceived Asdis's vicious tone.

_What do you want, Kurama?_

_How did you know it was me?_

_Nobody else bothers me._

_Darling, I need a favor._

_What do you think I owe you, ingrate?_

_Asdis, please._

There was a long span of silence before Asdis would reconnect.

_You have made me too corybantic for me to grant any requests._

_ I'm sorry. I love you and I did not mean to upset you. Please understand that one of my closest friends will die without your assistance._

Asdis again fell into a stretch of hush-hush, promoting Kurama to illuminate further.

_Almost all of Yusuke's life energy has been hijacked. I need the Kuro Mahou Tome of the Akuma._

_ Why should I care that your friend shall die?_

_ Because it will break my heart._

Kurama stood beside Hiei with his eyes closed and arms crossed, patiently waiting for Asdis to cave. He didn't have to wait long.

_I do not have the Kuro Mahou Tome anymore._

_ I know but where did-_

_ I destroyed it._

_ Why?_

_ Magnus got his hands on it when he tried to kill you. I never told you that he endeavored to utilize it to cast a hex on you. So when I punished him, I destroyed the Tome so he could never get his begrimed hands on it again. I could not have him cursing my Kurama._

Kurama heaved a breath as his hopes were dashed. But Asdis quickly breathed life into his murdered hope.

_But fret not, my fox, for I have the body of the text committed to memory._

_ Then explicate the incantation I need, dear._

_ You are not capable of using such a potent spell, Fox._

_ I will manage, Asdis._

_ …It will kill you, Kurama. Restoring life energy is like resurrecting the dead. You have no idea what that takes._

Kurama considered this data and knew Asdis was laying out foregone conclusions.

_Can you perform it and come out unharmed?_

_ If his life force has been depleted, Yusuke is in no shape to be relocated to my Cloud Forest._

_ What if I come and escort you to Tourin?_

_ No!_

_ Please, Asdis._

_ Absolutely not! If I leave, who will supervise my Forest? Filthy little bitches will come in here and butcher what is mine!_

_ Asdis Gunn-_

_ Do not bother me again._

Kurama waited for further banter but retracted his energy feed from the Jagan when he realized she cut off their mental affray. His emerald eyes peeked open only to connect with carmine ones. Hiei didn't present his archetypal smirk but he did complacently comment, "Oh yes, she melted like margarine."

Kurama smiled at Hiei's jab, "Give her time. If she does not contact you to speak with me by morning, I will return to the Cloud Forest and bring her here."

"You sound so sure of yourself," Hiei turned to pace back to the fortress.

Arms still crossed, Kurama followed Hiei's lead, "All I have to do is woo her. You should try it next time you get into an altercation with Mukuro." When Hiei brushed off Kurama's comment, the fox spirit pried, "What occurred between you two?"

Hiei snarled, "Why are you so intrusive with my and Mukuro's alliance?"

Kurama wrung his hand into the shoulder of Hiei's cloak, turning the slighter demon to him, "What did she say to you that would make you want to leave Alaric in the dead of night? Especially after you said moments before you were too fatigued to come here tonight."

Hiei glanced anywhere but in Kurama's eyes, knowing that he'd betray the truth if he did. Instead he opted to say, "I'm not sure when you decided Mukuro loves me but as far as I can tell you are the solitary person that has ever and will ever love me. That relentless bitch is incapable."

Hiei then jerked loose from Kurama and kept marching back to Yusuke's fortress. However, he was caught off guard when Kurama sprang beside him and grappled his shoulders to effectively stop him and draw his consideration. Despite his vehement refutation, Kurama knew how passionately Hiei felt about Mukuro and knew whatever she said must have been particularly poisonous to make Hiei unable to even be in the same territory as her. Kurama immediately encircled his arms around Hiei's neck and waist before the more petite demon could scurry away. Hiei scoffed as he gripped Kurama's biceps to push him away, "I don't need your commiseration, Kurama." The plant manipulator wholly ignored the fire demon's dismissal and pulled him closer. Hiei huffed, "What is this for fuck's sake?" When Kurama merely settled his chin on the top of Hiei's head, the ill-tempered demon declared, "Mukuro is not here to witness this. What is your motive now?"

This lured a response from the older apparition, "Creature comforts."

Hiei took a long interim before finally conceded and the clutch on Kurama's arms glided to encompass the redhead's torso. Though he was aware that Hiei would never tell him what Mukuro said, Kurama knew this was Hiei's method of admission to emotional malady. If he wasn't distraught, he would have shoved Kurama away instead of embracing him. Kurama then crooked his neck back so he could angle his head down and land his lips on Hiei's. This kiss contained more sensitivity than the one they had shared earlier that night. Both pairs of eyes closed this time, arms wound around one another, and Hiei actually kissed back. Most significantly, the lip lock endured for well over a minute. Hiei ended up being the deactivator of the intimacy and he stepped away, "Go fetch the mystic. It's only a matter of time before Yusuke's energy is eliminated."

Kurama fleetingly tipped his fingers against Hiei's cheek, "Mukuro does love you. But if you ever need shelter of any kind, remember that I love you, too."

Kurama swiftly turned and commenced his trek to the Cloud Forest to kidnap Asdis. Hiei accepted Kurama's words at face value, no analysis going into them, before he spun around to return to Yusuke's room. His foot was on the third stair of the fortress before a creep hit his spine and slinked to his Jagan. Glad he hadn't reapplied the eye's binding, Hiei acknowledged the psychic channel, expecting Asdis to demand Kurama.

_He just left._

_ Is Yusuke alive?_

Mukuro. Hiei lumbered around the stairs until settling his back against one of the walls, crossing his arms and legs, and determining to respond.

_Scarcely._

Mukuro didn't rejoin for a while. The time gap made Hiei suspect she ended the telepathic transmission.

_I will never be as ravishing as Kurama._

Hiei's mouth mildly dropped in stunned recognition that Mukuro was likening herself to Kurama. She had never come close to mentioning her bodily characteristics to anyone, not even Hiei. This came out of the blue and he had to file through his mind before finding an appropriate counter.

_What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Kurama and you are two completely different fucking people! Why the hell do you think I am comparing you to him?_

_ Because you compare everyone to him._

_ You are a sheer idiot. You are more dense than I ever gave you credit for._

_ How dare-_

_ This conversation is over. If you want to berate me about this have the fucking guts to do it to my face._

Hiei didn't wait even a second before he willed his Jagan eye closed. He quickly reapplied the binding around his forehead and thumped up the stairs. He found a miserable sight. Keiko's hand was crunched against Yusuke's face as she cried against his other cheek. Her sobs weren't projected but Hiei's acute hearing caught them. Keiko couldn't help but take particularized notice of the coolness exhuming from Yusuke's skin. She applied subtle kisses against his ear and cheekbone as she indulged in shaky respiration. Keiko tried to centralize her thoughts on the shallow rise and fall of Yusuke's chest since it was her glimmering sliver of a promised land. A land where Yusuke was alive and kicking. Her hand streamed down his neck to rest on the junction between his collar bone and shoulder. That's when an oddity arose.

Yusuke's left hand zoomed to Keiko's closest forearm and constricted. Keiko leapt from her spot, first assuming Yusuke had awoken. But she found his eyes still sealed and his facial muscles still lax. She called out, "Yusuke!" But the only reaction was a punitive constriction then his hand fell. Keiko looked around the room to find Ayame's eyes wide, the healers frozen in astonishment, and Hiei a step closer. Keiko peered back at her fiancé but he showed no more indications of movement. That's when it registered with Keiko: Yusuke wasn't dead yet and she should be searching for his remedy instead of spluttering on him. Keiko swiped the tears from beneath her lashes and scaled out of the bed. She established to first consult the healers. Keiko approached them, "What happened to Yusuke?"

The male healer spoke out, "He was attacked in the Barren Sea by a group of rebels. One of them had the ability to induce hallucinations and deluded Lord Yusuke before using a reiki nusumu hito to zap his life energy."

Keiko blinked in bafflement, "What kind of hallucination distracted _Yusuke_ from a fight?"

"We don't know," the female healer intervened, "but it was obviously operative enough to take his head out of the game."

Keiko spoke to the three-eyed demon in the room, "Hiei, what can we do?"

Hiei nonchalantly guaranteed, "Kurama has a proposition he's pursing as we speak."

Keiko pleaded with a stable voice, "What can I do for Yusuke?"

Hiei shrugged, "Don't ask me, woman. I can't even take a stab in the dark about what can be done for him."

"Well…" Keiko pushed her bangs back before announcing, "I'm sorry for taking your sword and trying to stab you." Hiei shrugged with only one shoulder this time. When he failed to acknowledge it further, Keiko expounded, "These…demons were frightening me into actions."

Ayame piped up, "You were under a nightmare curse. That's why they seemed so real, Anunit."

"Seemed?" Keiko lightly shook her head, "One of them banged my head into the wall."

Ayame's eyes creased in dread as she exclaimed, "You mean it actually touched you?"

Keiko nodded as she again trained her eyes on Hiei. Understanding she was looking for pardon, Hiei not-so-delicately excused her, "I know how weak-minded ningens are. It's not your fault you were born inferior."

Keiko actually managed a snicker at Hiei's apology-accepting insult. In due time, Hiei and the healers retreated from the chamber, Ayame fell victim to the sandman, and Keiko sat with her legs crossed as she sat on the left side of Yusuke. She was wide awake, having procured plenty of sleep the prior day, as she clang to Yusuke's left hand and sat with collapsed shoulders. She was rattled that there wasn't a single thing she could do for her love but wait for Kurama to return. The vaporous night came and went and Keiko had hardly moved an inch by near noon. She was stuck in a cycle of assuring herself of Yusuke's survival and squeezing his hand when an all-encompassing detonation shook the foundation of the fortress.

The explosion propelled Keiko to skitter from the bed and dart to the balcony. Through her nebulous eyes, Keiko found a theater of war. Black-robed figures that rapidly reminded her of the demons that assaulted Shizuru, Yukina, Botan, and her in the Human World were running liking savages around the planes of what could be seen of the Tourin landscape. She then saw Hokushin and Isami attacking a few of the annexing demons.

The rebels were infiltrating while Yusuke was indisposed.


	7. Entertain Your Revulsion

Well, I had to retype the finale of chapter 5 instead of completing this one, which is why I took longer to get it out than I had scheduled. So if you ever happen to re-read chapter 5 and it's altered, that's why. **bluejamist**, we were so close, babe.

On the preceding chapter, I had caught the day after I posted it that I spelled _JAGAN_ erroneously. I was closing down my Word document and the page it was displaying had the word "Jagon" in it. Reprehensible. I've been a mega fan of Yu Yu Hakusho for at least a decade but you deprive me of sleep and let me compose a 22 page chapter in two hours, I misspell one of my beloved character's most advantageous characteristic. How motherfucking embarrassing. And I couldn't think of a word that rhymed consummately with necrosis that also made sense and was reduced to looking up words that end in 'osis.' Goddamn.

**Also**, _naturally_, I have a prearranged storyline devised. What kind of in-college English major/writer would I be if I didn't strategize a story out before writing it?

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. I do not own the manga/anime characters, plots, or creation. I also do not own Zombie Courtney Love.

**Miles and Miles of Regret**

**by TheKennethAnger**

Chapter 7: Entertain Your Revulsion

Kurama promptly realized that Tourin was under attack when a rebel tried to tunnel a saber through his head. Easily disposing of the demon, Kurama made the educated guess that the rebels had received word that Yusuke was incapacitated and saw it as a gamble to do whatever they aimed to do to him. Overtaken with the constitution to protect one of his closest friends, Kurama turned to his company and instructed, "Hurry, Asdis!"

Asdis did not pick up her feet and shrugged, "I would rather not."

Kurama groaned, "I need to get-"

"Despite what you have decided based on imprecision, I am utterly adept to protect myself," Asdis swung her head slightly to flick her violet and olive hair over her shoulder. "Off with you. You are irritating me anyway."

Kurama's eyelids slightly drooped but his eyes stopped short of rolling as he turned from the Belladonna and fled at terminal velocity towards Yusuke's fortress. As he drew closer to the open stairwell at the structure's base, Kurama instantly spotted troy weight defying hair and its proprietor acting as the sole barrier between Yusuke's drained body and the rebels. They were persistently rushing the doorway while Hiei axed off limbs and heads to keep them at bay. Kurama swiftly glanced around him and noted that there were most likely a hundred rebels attacking at once. He wasn't particularly concerned with their strength, finding no real significant energy begetter, but their numbers would take its toll. He also took notice that the balcony was being defended by Yusuke's patrons. The redhead darted to Hiei's side just as the fire demon eliminated the last of a plethora of apparitions that attempted to infiltrate the fortress. Hiei's face rained blood in helter-skelter patterns onto his pale blue undershirt and his sword wept more crimson punishment onto the ground, "I assume you're finished wooing."

Kurama, though short-winded, laughed, "Yes, well, Asdis doesn't like to run. She's a few hundred feet back."

Hiei's eyebrow mildly arched, "I was wondering what was delaying your return. Why did you not just forcibly tote the wench?"

Kurama offered another chuckle, "One cannot use 'Asdis' and 'forcibly' in a singular sentence unless in the precise order 'Asdis forcibly.' Those words go together like tire iron and forehead."

Hiei huffed but refrained from saying much else when another round of mindless drones crowded them, all of which had infrared skin and red masks as war dress, looking like carbon copies of every other rogue that they had battled. Kurama was raring to discover why all the rebels looked like mirror images of one another. Hiei took less time to deliberate and was the initial aggressor as his katana chopped a body in half, mining a Niagara Falls of blood. With milliseconds to spare, he retracted his sword to entrench it into another body. Kurama's rose whip was clenched in his left hand after an energy spike before swinging it to assist Hiei in clearing the area.

Between all the chaos, Kurama and Hiei caught wind of the ear-splitting blowout from the balcony diagonally above them. Hokushin and Yusuke's other council members were ejected from the terrace and skyrocketed towards the ground like fallen angels to hell. Kurama and Hiei's eyes hitched onto one another's for less than a second before Hiei jetted, entrusting Kurama to safeguard the entrance. Hiei zoomed up the stairs to assess the damage only to find the invading demons scattered around the room. Two apparitions were working on containing a struggling Keiko, who seemed to spit venom at them, as another demon gave chase to a speedy Ayame. A fourth rebel was wriggling his fingers around Yusuke's nerveless arm. Rationalizing that Ayame was quick enough on her feet to evade capture Hiei set his sights on Yusuke and Keiko. To kick things off, he whisked by Yusuke to take the top of the touchy demon's head as a trophy. As he then piloted towards Keiko, he also recognized an elephantine amount of energy signatures gunning towards them. The balcony had become a free gain and an easy access point. Liquidating the two demons latched onto Keiko's arms in a gory glory Hiei then shoved Keiko towards Yusuke as more demons flooded from the balcony. Keiko stumbled towards Yusuke's bed but her direction immediately changed when she saw the demon that had been pursuing Ayame with its fingers staunchly secured around the baby demon's throat.

Keiko shouted as she sprang towards them, "Ayame! Hey, let her go!" Keiko glanced behind her only to find Hiei wholly oriented with executing as many demons as possible as they began to massively charge the balcony. It hit Keiko like a coal train that she was the only person that could save the distressed girl. She sprinted to Ayame and the throttling demon with no real plan rolled out in her head. Keiko dove against the demon with her shoulder down and landed on her knees to the front left of Ayame and began bending the demon's red fingers back. She propelled her body back and applied her entire weight to counter the pressure of the assaulting demon's fingers and managed to snap a few back to unleash Ayame's neck. However, just as she thought she actually had a shot at playing savior, a hand encroached her hair. Keiko was yanked back so forcefully she crashed to her side before a red-skinned arm encircled her neck. The brunette could do nothing further, now in a chokehold, except watch as the infant apparition was strangulated. The little tiger demon's eyes were blown reddish white and her cheeks were flushed but her lips were bloodless. Keiko desperately flung her hand towards Ayame which is when she noticed that her hands were crimson. Had she splashed her hands in someone's blood? Dwelling on the answer became less enticing as Keiko refocused on Ayame and her compressed esophagus. The more she tried to call out for the tiny girl, the firmer the constriction around her throat became. Eventually Keiko's vision was blurring and her face grew increasingly heated from the lack of oxygen caused by her assailant's clutches. Keiko's arms lashed around as she tried to hit the demon restricting her in the face or the eyes or anything vulnerable so she could breathe and save Ayame. As she fought him nail and tooth, she made the assumption Hiei hadn't noticed her distress because he was preoccupied with destroying anyone getting close to Yusuke. And obviously Yusuke wasn't able to save her or Ayame either.

It was well over two minutes of contending with her capturer before he began to drag her away. Her feet kicked and flailed wildly as her torso convulsed to duck out of the chokehold. By this time, Ayame was no longer thirsty for breath. Her face was no longer magenta but matched the bloodless, pallid color of her lips and the whites of her once brilliant eyes were bloodshot. Keiko felt the tears pressure the back of her eyeballs as she gazed at the post-mortem countenance of Yusuke's once proclaimed adopted daughter. Ayame checked out.

When the demon that suffocated Ayame relinquished his hold on her neck, Keiko witnessed the violent violet bruises around it. Keiko's heart was crushed like Ayame's windpipe and her hands fell to her sides to resign to her own mortality. The demon managed to drag the now flaccid Keiko to the stairs before he was fiercely torn away. Expecting to find Kurama to be her salvation, Keiko was overtly shocked to find Yusuke holding the demon above the ground with only one hand. Keiko lurched forward, gasping for breath, before she blurrily looked up to Yusuke. He was speaking in abnormal tongues like he had when he lugged her out of Atsuko's house but Keiko couldn't see his face as it was covered by the demon he held in his grip. The demon's feet jolted as he tried to find the floor again but Keiko knew there was no chance Yusuke would let him go. Not wanting to be in the place where the demon would most certainly fall dead once Yusuke let go of him, Keiko scuttled back on her hands and knees towards the stairs. She huddled against the junction of the bedroom and staircase walls as her fingers gingerly skimmed over her throat. But when she heard a dreadful carving sound, Keiko's hands dropped and her attention became zoned in on Yusuke's enlarged, serrated teeth as his jaw seemed to detach almost. Keiko couldn't help the yelp that absconded from her when Yusuke's hand dropped from the demon's throat to circle into his robes while sinking those knifelike fangs into flesh. The demon's larynx was instantly pierced by Yusuke's newfound teeth and Keiko forced her eyes away when gore fountained out of the demon's neck. Once he drew the teeth out, Yusuke proceeded to re-lodge them into the front of the demon's throat. This time it was blatant that Yusuke clipped the jugular when more blood hailed over Yusuke's face, exposed torso, and the ground behind him.

When Keiko shrieked at the sight, Yusuke tossed the wasted demon aside and his eyes zeroed in on her. Keiko was frozen stiff when she saw the iris of one of Yusuke's eyes was arctic blue and the other was crimson. Keiko howled, "_Hiei_! Something's possessed Yusuke! _Help_!"

Hiei immediately shelled out a massive slab of dark flame energy to exterminate as many demons as possible in order to decipher what Keiko was talking about but he was too late. Yusuke hurdled towards Keiko with a minatory growl and his neoteric teeth were millimeters from Keiko's neck when she was thrust out of his line of attack. Keiko barely caught herself before her face smacked the floor and she instinctively rolled around to find Kurama kneeling behind her sprawled out legs with his hands pressed against Yusuke's forehead and chin to hold him. Keiko called out Yusuke's name but it didn't deter the Mazoku from nailing Kurama's arms against the wall behind the fox demon. With the sway of brawniness and Kurama's already existing wounds, Yusuke became inescapable. His mouth jut open and the tips on his fangs penetrated the anterior column of Kurama's throat before Hiei got a hold of him. The perforations on Kurama's neck squirted blood like a syringe as he slumped to the floor. This only exacerbated Hiei's rage as he slung Yusuke across the room. His back struck the opposite wall of the bedroom from the force Hiei exerted.

The rebels crusading to overthrow the fortress, both by the balcony and the stairway, began to retreat when they discerned Yusuke's regained consciousness. Hiei was temperately pleased that he didn't have to dissipate his efforts on those masked demons but he could only be so satisfied when he had to wrestle with Yusuke. Hiei didn't wait for Yusuke to ignite the firefight as he romped across the room and busted his fist against his friend's face. The fire demon's brows crunched in bewilderment that Yusuke hadn't even tried to block or dodge his hit. In fact, the former Spirit Detective gave off the impression that he hadn't expected the punch at all. Yusuke languidly made his way back to his feet and Hiei decided he would recreate the exact same attack. When the smaller demon's fist again connected harshly with Yusuke's face, Hiei was officially confused. _He's not fighting like Yusuke_. Yusuke didn't waste time returning to his feet this time around and an extrinsic gust of ivory wind eclipsed Hiei. Hiei felt the chill on his skin as the blistering ice contained in the cyclone, which seemed to emerge from Yusuke's mouth, accumulated. Hiei was icebound within seconds. The ice congealed around Hiei's entire lower body, advertently trapping his arms also, rendering him immobile. Yusuke's face careened towards Hiei and his razor teeth drilled into the front column of the Forbidden Child's neck.

Keiko called out Yusuke's name again as her fiancé's head jerked, purposefully twisting his sawlike teeth into Hiei's throat to draw more blood. Though Hiei made no sound, he was in measureless pain as his neck was basically being ripped out. However, Kurama wasn't about to stand by and let that happen. Kurama discharged the Chou Kagon Retsuzanshi to slash Yusuke's ribcage- a spot where it wouldn't fatally wound him- to cause Yusuke's teeth to retract from Hiei's skin and he stumbled to the side while pressuring his hands against his ribs. Kurama then swiftly switched to a regular rose whip attack to crack open the ice concealing Hiei. Hiei wailed, "Kurama, you fool!" as Yusuke tackled Kurama while the fox apparition was turned to assist Hiei. Once again, Yusuke's jaws practically detached and his teeth punctured Kurama's flesh. Kurama cried out as Yusuke began eating away at the flesh and blood over his heart, finding himself too paralyzed with agony to counteract.

Hiei was left with no other prerogative when he impaled his katana through Yusuke's frame from his position on the ground.

A moment of hysteria and contrition impregnated the room as Keiko, Kurama, and Hiei gaped at the sword sheathed in Yusuke's body. Keiko's eyes were the size of the moon and her chest caved at the sight she beheld. She saw the bluish-grey and red velvet in his irises drain until they were his enchanting bronze color once more before his eyelids shut. Then another eruption of polar winds clouded in the bedchamber as Yusuke's body shot backwards without anyone touching it. His mouth fell agape, revealing his normal teeth, and a strange electric field crackled out into dusts of ice and pearly vapor. Yusuke's body crashed to the floor and no other signs of disturbance or life came from him. As the zephyr of ice and vapor swirled above the spectators, it condensed into an outline of a being. They had to turn their eyes away as an incandescent flash flared up in the air above them.

The outline formed into an eye-catching woman with untamed raven hair and cool grey-blue eyes that lacked pupils. She wore a chalky white susohiki kimono that stretched close to the floor, hiding her feet, with a faintly indigo sash at the waistline. Most strikingly, she was practically transparent from the neck down. After only a few moments, the apparition floated towards Ayame's corpse, glaring with ire. Without a syllable spoken, the woman vaulted towards Hiei, whose feet were still entrapped in the ice, and clamped her hands around his shoulders to hold him against the flooring. Her jaws detached and she bit into his left pectoral, removing a prodigious chunk of skin and muscle. As per usual, Hiei did not make a sound but Kurama knew the bite had to sting and he frantically tried to relocate his rose whip. The woman took another chunk out of Hiei's chest before going to town on his neck. Hiei was losing much more blood than Kurama had by now and Keiko was coiled up with her arms folded around her head at this point. She was so distraught she didn't notice the two pairs of feet that maneuvered past her.

"Hiei!"

Keiko's head shot up to find Mukuro hammer a scarlet-colored blast of energy from her closed fist against the side of the haunting woman's face. The woman was pitched onto the terrace after the energy fist blast was delivered and slid into the railing with a literal black hole, jagged around the edges as though she was made of porcelain, in her face. Asdis, still clad in her elegant belladonna berry dress, cocked her hip to the side as she towered over Kurama's lolled form, "Well, my love, it seems as though you have unearthed the precious yuki-onna Aylar." Asdis nodded her head towards Ayame's deceased form, "You hopefully now see why I did not want Aylar's dearest daughter Aysel to tread through my Cloud Forest. I knew she would bring her mother's spirit with her."

Asdis yielded in her explanation when the mystery possessor Aylar arose from the balcony. The hollow that had been made in her cheek by Mukuro was slowly re-piecing itself and before long she hovered above them and her lips curled into a snarl around her sharpened teeth. Aylar gravely glared at Asdis before grunting, "_You._"

Asdis smirked, "My, my, Aylar, what extravagant teeth you have. I am shocked they grew back not only through your slumber but also after I wrenched them out _one_ by _one_." Aylar growled and flew like iced lightning at Asdis with an unhinged jaw. Asdis didn't even flinch as she used the palm of one hand to press against the top row of Aylar's teeth and hooked the fingers of her other hand over the bottom row, fingernails curling into the gums. An icy swipe of wind dashed again Asdis's cheekbones, lightly coating the Belladonna's face with diamond ice. Aylar seemed to free herself from Asdis's grasp. But Asdis did not loosen her hold and chided, "I do not have time for your bad blood. My lovebird's vitality is endangered and you are beginning to grind on my nerves." Asdis applied tension to Aylar's mouth until the hinges of her jaws collapsed under the pressure and a bloodcurdling splintering noise sounded off. Asdis grinned in sick gratification at Aylar's bones snapping before she recited, "I call upon the Ancients from the hostile abyss to do my bidding. I invoke Cathula, God of Anger and the beings of the underworld. Hear me now. Bones of anger, bones of dust, full of fury, revenge is just. I scatter these bones, these bones of rage. Take thine enemy, bring her pain. I see thine enemy before me now. I bind her, crush her, bring her down. With these bones I now do crush, make thine enemy turn to dust."

Aylar's ghostlike body fractured away until she sprinkled into tiny particles of ice and vapor once more and rose into the Makai sky like helium. After Aylar dissolved, Asdis scraped her dagger-esque fingernails across her face to remove the ice that gripped her face and Mukuro scampered to Hiei and stood over him to sit him up by a grip on his biceps. When Hiei's carmine eyes bolted to Mukuro's he snidely remarked, "Why…the hell are you here, woman?"

Mukuro sarcastically reiterated, "Oh, Mukuro, thank you for saving my sorry ass! Where _would_ I be without you chaperoning me?"

Hiei thought of a witty quip but stopped from letting it out as he grinded his teeth together and positioned his hand over his tracheal wound. Mukuro was also armed with another ironic comment about this action but held back when his eyes shut. She knew this was an admission of how great the pain truly was. He gutturally observed, "You couldn't come…two minutes earlier? I get it. You're…pissed off."

Mukuro slapped Hiei's face light enough to not leave a bruise but hard enough to leave a pinkish hue on his cheek. She was shocked to find her light hit knocked an already heavy-eyed Hiei unconscious. By this point in Hiei and Mukuro's repartee Asdis had pulled the hem of her nightshade dress above her alabaster knees to kneel beside Kurama. She brushed the fiery red forelocks of his hair away from his face, settled her hand over his gnawed flesh, and doted, "Is this and your throat the only places you were harmed, my pet?"

Kurama barely shook his head, "Restore Yusuke. Quickly."

Asdis rotated her head to look at the fallen son of Raizen, somewhat surprised to find Keiko on her knees beside him with one hand supporting herself and the other clamped around Yusuke's mouth and nose to search for his breath. Keiko sharply frowned through her escalating tears at Asdis before gnarling, "Well what are you waiting for? Heal him!"

Asdis's black berry-painted lips scowled as she challenged, "I would not try to instruct the Belladonna what course of actions she is going to take, ningen."

Kurama irately scraped out, "_Asdis_, I will not let you doctor me until you heal Yusuke then Hiei."

"Don't make ultimatums with me, Kurama," Asdis ruthlessly scathed, "you can _rot_ if you think I will be ordered around."

Mukuro blazingly interrupted, "You stupid vamp, you better fucking restore them or I'm going to make you wish you were never conceived!"

"Oh, yes, that's smart. Kill the only being that can resuscitate Raizen's son."

"Restore them or I'll beat you beyond recognition."

Asdis's voice slumped multiple octaves, just as they had in the Cloud Forest when she tried to murder Keiko, and her pupils dilated to encompass her irises, "You halfwit, Sapphic, effete, grotesque _swine_! I'm going to pluck your organs out and feed your eyes to the crows."

Mukuro's fingers fisted, "Bring it on, bitch."

Kurama tightly gripped Asdis's nearby ankle as the huldra began to pace towards Mukuro, who wore an expression of extreme offense and fury, "Asdis, don't."

Asdis easily tore her ankle away from Kurama's clutch and progressed towards Mukuro, "What, Mukuro? You think you're almighty because you were a king of Makai? Spare me. I'm more omnipotent than any of the three kings of invalidity."

"Not without your cowardly mysticism, you aren't," Mukuro challenged in a mocking tone.

Keiko pushed up to her knees and opined, "Stop this! Yusuke needs treatment!"

Asdis revealed teeth as her lips upturned into a merciless smirk and her manlike voice blew, "Come, Chikou's daughter, lambaste me!"

Mukuro felt the acrimony detonate like a supernova and her insides were washed with malignance as black as thunder at the mention of her "father." Mukuro moved so quickly she became invisible as she smashed her fist, flaring with cerise energy, into Asdis's face. She was wholly disgruntled when Asdis didn't fly headfirst into the brickwork of the wall behind her. In fact, she didn't budge at all, not even a foot moved out of place. The only sign Asdis gave that she had been barbarically slugged was the turn of her head and a sprinkle of blood down her chin, indicating her teeth cut the inside of her lip. Keiko was unnerved to find Asdis's blood to be stark black as it streamed down her neck. A roar vibrated in Mukuro's throat and she raised her hand to cross dimensions when Asdis snatched her forearm. When the huldra tried to pull the king closer, Mukuro jammed her elbow into Asdis's nose. Again, Asdis's head mildly rotated but she immediately recovered and used her index and middle fingers of her right hand to pierce through Mukuro's collar bone. Everyone conscious heard the crackle of Mukuro's bone fracturing apart. Mukuro overlooked the pain to yank Asdis's fingers out of her and head-butted the Cloud Forest keeper. Blood was drawn once more as a section of skin on Asdis's forehead split open. Ebony blood slung down Asdis's temple and down her cheekbone.

The corners of Asdis's mouth upturned and a schizoid grin appeared before she licked the prime droplet of blood trailing down her face, "Formidable pain sensitivity, Mukuro. Enlighten me. How is it that you can tolerate immense physical pain yet one tiny prick at your past molds you into a deplorable crybaby?" Mukuro used her clutch on Asdis to toss her across the room. Asdis flew skull-first at the wall, soaring over Keiko and Yusuke's still sword-inflicted body, but her alabaster hands rose above her head to counter the wall first and they basically stuck like glue to the wall as she flipped backwards. Her bare feet then pasted to the wall and she was able to walk down the structure, much like a spider. Asdis took this time to prod Mukuro's rage further, "_Daddy_ issues weighing on your mind, Mukuro?" Asdis's voice managed to lower even more and her voice was deeper than Toguro's as she taunted, "What grade of acid did you use, darling? Did he throw you out instantly afterwards or did he give you another _birthday present_?"

A wordless scream ripped through Mukuro's vocal chords and she was on Asdis in a meteoric flash. Pounding her fist into Asdis's face and neck, Mukuro couldn't focus on anything beyond her eclipsing rancor. Everyone and their situations had been forgotten by the former Makai king. Kurama watched in exasperation at the ongoing fight, wondering why Asdis could never just keep her mouth shut. He wasn't concerned Mukuro would kill her because even though the blows Mukuro was delivering should have formed gaping holes and sent organs and guts abound, Asdis had uniquely thick skin by genetics. Also, Asdis had put a regenerative spell over her body well over a thousand years prior and renewed the spell ever so often. More meticulous inspection supported Kurama's line of thoughts as the gash that was on Asdis's forehead was already healed. She was perennial- immortal, if you will- from anything other than age, therefore, took hits without care. If Kurama knew Asdis, the Belladonna was most likely enjoying contracting Mukuro's fury because other people's emotions were entertainment for her. Kurama was broken from his sentiments when Asdis captured Mukuro's fists and jerked them downwards. Then her body contorted and her ghostly legs encircled Mukuro's torso, entrapping the ruler's arms, and settled her hands on the half demon, half mechanical face.

"Caress of destruction, snake to my lips. Devitalize her, force her into the agonies of Death's grips. Exhaust her verve with this salute and cast her energy into an inanimate chute."

Mukuro was not expectant when Asdis puckered blackened lips against hers.

Kurama failingly tried to get off the ground and protested, "Asdis, no, stop!" Kurama knew he had to put an end to the kiss of death when Asdis deepened the lip lock. Kurama cast the die as he wretchedly tugged a seed out of his hair and unleashed enough youkai to create another rose whip. He rose halfway on his elbow and lashed the whip around his neck. It fully compassed his neck twice before he raised his voice, "I will take my own head off if you don't liberate Mukuro!"

Asdis did not remove her lips from Mukuro's immediately but her eyes shot towards Kurama. When she realized his rose whip was secured like a noose around his neck and fiery locks, Asdis detached her lips from their prey and her legs practically wind-milled to dislodge Mukuro from her arrest. Asdis affectionately disputed as a paralytic Mukuro fell to her knees then doubled backwards, "Kurama, unbind yourself now!"

Kurama smartly proclaimed, "You may be able to restore life energy if it is near extinction but I know even you can't _actually_ resurrect the dead without forfeiting your own life. You have cornered me into this extreme, Asdis."

Mukuro's lips and natural eye were coated in a black hue as Asdis peered down at her. Asdis wanted to rub out Mukuro with the remaining energy (and literal) poison oozing from her lips but she could not bear the thought of Kurama's ultimate demise when she had to capability of diverting it. She thought of casting a spell to dissolve Kurama's rose whip but knew he would make the final hitch and decapitate himself before she got the first word out of her mouth or reached him with her telekinesis. Asdis was more heedful of Kurama's bluffs than anyone because she knew he never made one if he didn't intend to follow through with it when necessary. Asdis's voice elevated in octave and her normal, feminine voice resurfaced, "Bear no malice, Fox."

Kurama's voice faltered mid-sentence, "Then you have to remove the sword…from Yusuke's side and heal his physicality. Then you must recuperate Hiei. Next will be Mukuro. If you elect to do otherwise, you won't be seeing me."

Asdis scantily nodded with burrowed eyebrows and tread to Yusuke. Keiko had covered herself over her fiancé to protect his body from further damage that could have befallen him in the hub of the Belladonna and Mukuro's rumble. Reluctant to move, Keiko finally inched onto her bent legs when Kurama promised no harm would come to Yusuke. Asdis squatted and roughly took the handle of Hiei's katana in her hand and extracted the weaponry from Yusuke's body. The colossal basin of blood beneath Yusuke augmented as tidewaters of gore spritz from the open wound the sword was drawn from. Keiko felt her gag reflexes boil over at the sight and could find only disgust as Yusuke's blood spurted onto Asdis's ivory skin. Asdis dropped the katana behind her before kneeling beside the Mazoku and cupped her hands over the entry and exit wound on his ribcage and shoulder, respectively. She noiselessly recited, "Goddess that breathes life into demons, heal what has been pained and beaten."

After a couple moments, Asdis removed her hands and Yusuke's injuries were good as new. Kurama approvingly reminded, "Now Hiei."

Asdis gave him an evil eye but did as she was told when Kurama constricted the rose whip and pricked a bead of blood from his neck. Asdis stomped to a knocked out Hiei and spread her hands over the open flesh of his chest and neck then repeated, "Goddess that breathes life into demons, heal what has been pained and beaten."

The tissue, muscle, and epidermis redeveloped over his chest and stripped throat. Because Yusuke's life energy was still unrestored, he did not reach consciousness upon reclamation. This was not the case for Hiei. The fire demon awoke with a start and he rolled onto his side with a shake of his head to clear his vision. Kurama was the initial person Hiei found since the fox apparition was beside him, "Kurama, what are you doing?"

Kurama ground out, "I am going to behead myself unless-" Hiei made his protestation known as he reached for Kurama's hand to unfetter the half-human's fingers from the rose whip. However, Kurama tightened the whip, drawing more blood out of his trachea, as an impendence and Hiei yielded his actions right away. Kurama chokingly continued, "I am going to decapitate myself unless Asdis restores Mukuro."

"Mukuro?" Hiei disbelievingly inquired before his rouged eyes hooked on Mukuro toppled over on the floor clear across the room. It didn't even register with Hiei until he was drawing Mukuro into his arms that she had not been injured in the fight with Aylar. His ruby orbs could only focus on Mukuro's obsidian-stained eye as he bellowed, "What the fuck happened?" The silence that trailed the inquiry was all the answer Hiei needed when he glared from under heavy eyelids at Asdis, "Cure her or I'll skin you to the bone- until every globule of your blood is spilled."

Asdis faintly growled but cut her threat at its inception when she heard Kurama's tenuous gagging from tightening the rose whip, "I will practice pure mysticism on her solely by virtue of Kurama's head. Don't think your nugatory threats tilted my favor towards you or away from claiming your tongue as a souvenir for your disrespect once my fox is safe, you wretched man." Hiei resettled Mukuro flat on the floor as Asdis clomped to them and lowered to her knees. Her golden, almond-shaped eyes narrowed at Hiei though she focused her mind on Mukuro and recounted, "Goddess Brighid, I call on thee to retrocede this kiss of mortality. The breath is out of the body; the grave closes over her energy. Halt her psychic autopsy; preserve her from jeopardy. Goddess Brighid, deliver her from necrosis. Deliver her from thy acidosis."

The blackness in Mukuro's eye spun like water into a drain and her azure iris murkily sought out her surroundings. The only black residue on her lips was the remnants of Asdis's belladonna berry lipstick as they wheezed, "Hiei?"

The fire apparition had never observed Mukuro in a fouled up position, especially after a fight, and the peppery concern he felt toiled inside him like witch's brew. He refused to speak in caution of his voice sounding weak or, even worse, his words portraying him as weak. He merely stared at her and scanned every inch of her face as if to reassure she were alive. He felt her telepathically reach out to him but, again, he was afraid to answer her by chance of coming off ill-adjusted. Comprehending that Hiei was not going to answer her psychic channel, Mukuro's eyes reset to Asdis as the huldra pranced away from them. Mukuro blinked numerous times to regain her senses before she aimed to get to her feet and assault the she-devil that just poisoned her energy and bloodstream. Unfortunately, Hiei swathed his arms around her from behind and prevented her from revenge. The orange-haired demon prepared to protest Hiei's embrace until a pressure nudged the base of her skull. Mukuro was borderline aghast that Hiei was nuzzling his nose in her hair but the breath from his mouth seeping against her skin froze her thoughts. His hands ventured where they dared not ever before as they rested over her stomach and on her hip. During her astonishment, Mukuro momentarily let down all her guard and rage which allowed Hiei to have easy entrée to her telepathic channel.

_I didn't mean it._

Mukuro scrutinized the hand outstretched on her stomach with languorous eyes and toasting herself in the sensation of Hiei's breath when she retorted.

_What are you talking about?_

Hiei's stable arms condensed more firmly around Mukuro's lanky form.

_What I said last night._

_Why are you saying this?_

_I never thought I would see you the way I did just now._

Mukuro's chest became a subterranean crater and the breath was pushed out of her when she ventured to comment.

_Liar. You meant it when you said you'll always love and desire Kurama._

_ I am referring to what I said about your parents._

The clairvoyant pillow talk between Hiei and Mukuro went on as Asdis again approached Kurama to heal him. However, feeling that he for once had the upper hand on his vicious lover, Kurama imposed, "No, do not come to me. Renew Yusuke's life energy."

Asdis discontentedly objected, "That is without rhyme or reason, Kurama. Once I restore his life energy, my energy will be dormant and I will not be able to restore you."

Keiko wiggled her hands around Yusuke's neck and bicep to jack his head up onto her white and pink-striped cotton pajama-panted lap. She reasoned, "Kurama, let her heal you. Yusuke's out of the line of urgent fire and he will be alright until you get taken care of."

The discomfort Kurama felt sizzling in his injuries was overlooked as he deducted, "If Asdis patches me up I won't be able to coerce her to heal Yusuke. She is already incensed, if you can't tell, and once I unbind my neck and let her restore my wounds, she will pull a volte-face and refuse to refurbish Yusuke's energy."

"Then keep the hold around your neck and let her heal you," Keiko suggested wearily.

"If she gets close enough to heal me, she will remove my noose. I can't allow that when Yusuke's life is in the balance," Kurama urged. "Recondition his life force, Asdis."

A baritone wail came from the black lipstick-smudged mouth that framed the words, "Enough of this bombast! I'll have no more of your dictatorial rubbish!"

With Asdis's threatening demeanor and tone, Kurama wrenched the rose whip and it cut further into his trachea than the gash Yusuke's possessed lunacy had left. The rose whip magnetized copious amounts of blood from the redhead's throat and he pulled it tight enough that the edge of the whip almost aligned with the natural line of the front of his neck.

Asdis and Hiei shouted at the same instant, "Kurama!"

He knew if he tugged much harder he would prick his jugular so Kurama eased off the first stages of decapitation. Kurama choked out, "Now, Asdis Gunnvor."

Keiko could barely watch as the scene unfolded but she was again surprised by the all-consuming emotion and ardor she found in Asdis's eyes as they gazed at Kurama. Asdis's voice slipped out at a light whisper, "I get away with what women call murder. And you somehow thieve my spine when it should be your turn, Kurama. I will grant this request if you take care of my body during inertia."

"I will," Kurama confirmed as his head tilted against the floor.

Keiko swore that Asdis's feet didn't move as she trailed across the room another time to bow down next to Yusuke's unreactive body. Working around Keiko's hands, Asdis positioned her hand in the dead center of Yusuke's chest. "Goddess Dea Tacita, I invoke thee from the depths of macabre silence. Replenish his vital principle, awaken him, cure him, make him invincible. Purify his body, purify his soul; terrify his infirmity, terrify his spirit control. Goddess Dea Tacita, I raise thou from the speechless plane to absolve Yusuke from pain, constrain, and bane. Navitus empix navitus. Navitus yaqyl navitus. Navitus uplitral navitus."

Asdis yanked her hand away from Yusuke as an ashen glow slithered over his body and seemed to shine out of the pores in his skin. Keiko's eyes checked over him and her hand cupped his chin when he began to quiver. She couldn't tear her eyes away from her fiancé long enough to even track the following movements of Asdis. The Belladonna stumbled to Kurama as her energy began to dip. Her eyelids were weighty, her breath was shallow, and her mouth was slightly slack as she dropped to her hands and knees beside the fox demon. Her fingers weakly worked beneath the pads of Kurama's fingers to loosen them from their viselike grip on the rose whip. He put up no fight as she pushed his hand aside and began to unwind the whip from around his neck, taking care to untangle his hair from it as she went. The deadly thorns pricked her palms and fingers but she continued to ungrasp and re-grasp the ends of the whip to untie it. The whip was laid stick straight underneath Kurama's neck and he relieved that pressure quickly as he rose to his elbows just in time to catch Asdis as she bowed out of consciousness.

Her incapacity riled Hiei as he romped from Mukuro and yanked Asdis's mauve and forest-colored hair in an attempt to remove her from atop of Kurama. Kurama's hand shot out defensively to Hiei's wrist, "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to wade knee deep in her blood," the fire demon snarled.

"The hell you are," came the wilting voice.

Hiei and Kurama's heads snapped towards Yusuke as the revived man sat up with Keiko's hands arranged on his shoulders from behind. Dark bags depressed under his eyes, the whites of which were teeming from crimson vessels, and blood was plastered over the bottom half of his face. Bloody splatters were soaked into the skin of his neck and torso and glistened in the odd light from the setting sun with every deep gasp he took. Keiko became troubled by Yusuke's breathless state, "Take it easy, Yusuke."

Yusuke further challenged Hiei, "She's a friend, Hiei, and you ain't gonna hurt 'er."

Hiei scoffed, "A friend my ass! She-"

"Means a lot to Kurama and you aren't gonna do anything to 'er cause I'll beat your ass. Besides part of 'er aura is on me so I know she saved me from kickin' the bucket. Lay off," Yusuke ground out in a dwindling, caustic voice.

"She almost killed Mukuro," Hiei seethed, "and I'll be damned if she walks away without ramification for that."

"Don't make me turn into a hammer from hell, Hiei," Yusuke gratingly warned as he used the back of his hand to wipe the perspiration from his forehead, causing his disheveled soot-colored bangs to be pushed back. He sluggishly continued, "'Cause I ain't in the best shape to beat your face in right now. So if I'm pushed to that point I'm gonna go the extra mile to deform it."

Hiei relinquished his clutch on Asdis's hair, causing her to capsize into Kurama's arms, and puffed, "If she comes near Mukuro again, I'll bring her head to the block Kurama barely avoided."

Accepting Hiei's half-assed resignation, Yusuke shifted all his weight to his right hand to get to his knees and shuffle to his feet. Keiko rose as he did and was prepared when he grappled for her forearms in order to poise himself. Keiko apprehensively set her flat hand against Yusuke's chest when he seemed to sway on his feet, "Easy, sugar."

"Holy fuck, Keiko, you ok? You hurt?" Yusuke investigated when he found Keiko to have bloodstained, bedraggled clothes. His worries only heightened when he saw what seemed to be profound abrasions on her neck, hands, and wrists. "Tell me you ain't hurt!"

"Hey, don't worry about me. I'm fine," Keiko gripped one of Yusuke's forearms for emphasis. "The blood's not mine."

Yusuke slowly blinked before his eyes fell to indicate her hands and wrists, "What 'bout the rest of ya?"

Keiko enquiringly gazed where Yusuke was looking and released him to bring her hands closer to her face, "I forgot about that. No, I'm fine. I don't know what this red stuff is but it came from one of the demons. At least some of it did. But they weren't this bad until the other demon got ahold of me."

Yusuke became infuriated hastily after this declaration and clenched his fists as he asked, "One of those bastards had a hold 'round your neck?"

Keiko confirmed, "Yes, he had me in a headlock with his arm."

Kurama spoke in a low voice over Asdis's head as he observed, "That's an idiosyncrasy and a coincidence. When the demons actually touch people, they leave red…marks behind? Yusuke, touch Keiko's hand and see if the red transfers to your skin."

Yusuke didn't look up to anything besides the assignment of sleeping but he followed Kurama's direction. He rubbed his index finger on the back of Keiko's hand, only to find the magenta colored substance was indeed now on his finger. He held it up for Kurama to see, "Just what the hell does this mean?"

A light bulb seemed to flash over Kurama's head, "Now I know why they all look the same but their energy signatures were utterly different. They're not one type of demon that look alike but carry different energies; they're many types of demons that have veiled themselves to look similar."

Keiko interpolated, "Now that I think about it I had a less severe version of these marks after they touched my arms when Kuwabara was fighting them in the Human World."

Hiei had made his way to Mukuro by the time Kurama finished his statement and offered a hand to help her up as he added, "Why would they all want to look like each other?"

Kurama almost made another contribution to the inquisition but the ground fine pain that burned in his injuries stopped him. His teeth clenched and his supportive arms gave out, causing his back to fall flat onto the floor. Asdis was motionlessly bridged over him with her cheek and temple crumpled against the floor and her weight did nothing to service the wound over his heart. Yusuke took a step towards his friend to give him aid but his ankle turned to pulp and he virtually tripped. Luckily, Keiko was close enough to latch onto him to keep him standing. Once he was steady, Keiko let him go and progressed to his side to see his eyes shut like he was frantically fighting sleep. Hiei disregarded this demonstration of physical delicacy and took mercy on Kurama.

Before long, Asdis was laid beside Kurama with her feet near his head and Hiei gripped Kurama's hand to haul him into a sitting position. Hiei was shambling through his brain how to heal Kurama by the time he heard footsteps. The conscious persons of the room turned towards the staircase to find Hokushin and Touou cripplingly panting with marred and charred appearances. The two men rushed to Yusuke and Keiko, evenly divided on checking up on them. Hokushin was projecting examinations at Yusuke and offering balance support to him while Touou questioned Keiko and checked her for injuries. Knowing they would get on Yusuke's bad side shortly, Keiko fended them off, "Alright, alright, you guys. We're ok. Yusuke's just a little dazed and I'm perfectly fine. What's more important right now is finding someone to heal Kurama."

Touou spoke up, "That won't be a problem. I don't know where the healers scampered off to but your friends showed up a few minutes ago. That's what took us so long to get up here. Seitei and Isami are leading them here now."

Hiei crouched on one knee behind Kurama to keep him sitting up before exploring, "You're saying Yukina is here?"

Hokushin nodded, "Yes, she, the spirit guide, and the loud-"

Hiei interjected, "Buffoon."

Hokushin continued, "-human were found not long after the balcony had been blustered to pieces. We found them behind some collapsed stone walls."

As Hokushin digressed, Yusuke's lackluster eyes aligned with Keiko's overwrought ones before his hand curved over her shoulder to guide her to him so he could wrap his free arm around her midriff. His mouth moved over her upper cheekbone as he investigated, "Are you ok? No offense but you kinda look like you're wearing a Halloween costume."

Keiko wanted to breezily chuckle at Yusuke's joke but as her eyes fell on the inorganic body of Ayame behind him she could only strangle out, "What kind of Halloween costume?"

Yusuke cloudily dribbled, "Zombie Courtney Love."

"Yusuke...don't let go of me."

"Huh? Why?"

"I have to tell you something."

Yusuke searched Keiko's pleading eyes when he noticed they tossed a glance over his shoulder, obviously focusing on something horrific. Yusuke released Keiko to take a step back and his head was almost turned when Keiko screeched, "No!" Keiko's hands shot out to cup Yusuke's cheeks to prevent him from looking over his shoulder. "No, Yusuke, hold onto me."

At this point the room had gone taciturn. Keiko's ear-piercing 'no' made Hokushin's mouth seal and made everyone's heads snap towards the couple.

Yusuke's somnolent eyes were instantaneously tinged with perplexity but he languidly advanced a step and embraced Keiko once more. She dejectedly slithered her hands to his back to entangle her arms around him. Yusuke disconcertedly didn't try to move out of her duress again and returned the hug, "Uh, ok."

Keiko tried to find the words to inform Yusuke that Ayame had been slain but every time she opened her mouth, it closed again. Ultimately her face settled against Yusuke's collar bone and she lead them into a waltz so she could keep a grasp on him while he saw what she could not describe. They principally moved in a full-circle before Keiko forced them to a halt. Keiko didn't see Yusuke's mouth drop or eyebrows crease but didn't have to in order to know he was automatically in a state. His muscles contracted and his breathing came out in tethering spurts, causing his chest to heave worse than it already was, while his arms compressed harder around Keiko. He attempted to step towards Ayame but Keiko made no effort to assist in his endeavors and he stopped. Keiko was only just audible when she breathed, "I'm sorry, Yusuke."

Yusuke could only stare at the departed tiger demon as tears ballooned in his eyes and spilled over like cataracts over a mountainside. He didn't overtly sob, not that anyone expected him to, but Keiko knew he wanted to when his arms clamped solider around her and his chest was raising so tremendously that she was being moved with it. His fingers corkscrewed into her cotton t-shirt and his teeth jabbered above her ear. Every diminutive reaction Yusuke had was like wretched ballads sung to Keiko's heart. An extraordinarily long while of Yusuke's weeping stares, heartbroken acknowledgements, and pulverizing embrace passed before he was able to speak, "What-what happened?"

One of Keiko's hands caressed the back of Yusuke's head as she gloomily spoke, "A rebel strangled her. I'm so sorry. I tried to stop him."

Yusuke feebly quizzed, "Is that why your neck…"

He didn't have to polish his thought for Keiko to respond, "No, that demon I mentioned earlier put me in a headlock and dragged me away from her."

Yusuke was grief-stricken as he rolled out, "Oh, Ayame."

His head slumped onto her shoulder and Keiko didn't have the willpower to correct Yusuke. But when Kurama nudged him and pointed at Yusuke and Keiko, Hiei got the message that he had to convey Yusuke the nitty-gritty. Hiei sighed, "Her name was Aysel, Yusuke."

Yusuke's head rotated while still attached to Keiko's shoulder to locate a discouraged Hiei. The drowsiness and affliction in his eyes were as clear as cellophane once they locked on the fire demon but Hiei didn't get the chance to further explicate the facts when a cacophonous wail echoed through the room.

"It looks like a war zone in here!"

Hiei glowered sharply at Botan as he scolded, "Must everything you say be stupid, obvious, and annoying?"

Botan's hands were on her hips, "Well, I'm just…su-uh-uh…uh…"

Botan didn't state her view when she caught prospect of Yusuke crying, encased in Keiko's arms, and Kurama bleeding on the floor. It seemed that Yukina's annotations were akin to Botan's since she jogged across the bedchamber and fell to her knees beside Kurama. Her hands went to work to doctor his wounds as she inquired, "Kurama, what happened?"

Kurama pushed a smile to his face, "Nothing I can't endure, Yukina."

Yukina's energy rose as she healed Kurama, starting with his neck, "How did this happen?"

Kurama curtly chuckled, "A yuki-onna was using Yusuke's body as a colander."

Hiei peered at Yukina from behind Kurama as he elaborated, "That bitch wasn't very powerful but she had Yusuke's body thus his physical capabilities."

Yukina blinked up at Hiei, "I see. But how did Aylar-"

Hiei interrupted as he crossed his arms, "How do you know of the yuki-onna?"

Everyone else realized Yukina had indeed mentioned the ghostly woman by name despite no one having told it to her, "She is legendary in the Island of the Koorime. She was born there."

Kurama endorsed, "Tell us more, Yukina."

Yukina persisted in healing the redhead as she indulged, "Aylar was said to be of exceptional beauty with a mean streak a mile wide. She would often lure demons to her with tales and her fairness; only to kill them. One of the demons she tried to bait, a white tiger demon, captured her heart because of his own extraordinary allurement and youth. They made love and lived together in a shanty before the tiger demon betrayed her. She drained his blood, life-force, and froze him with her breath. Before she exhausted his energy, the white tiger demon cursed Aylar.

"The story goes that the tiger demon had been given the power of mysticism by an arikura-no-baba named Fuyuko, who was traveling with a mononoke, Natsuki. The white tiger demon had the ability to cause demonic permutation. He cursed Aylar before his death and her soul was to be transferred out of her body upon her death. The intent was to disallow Aylar's soul peace and solace in another world, therefore, she would remain latent in another demon's body; unable to use her powers or allure. The white tiger demon's curse would cause her dying soul to be permutated to a creature incapable of harming anyone: their at-that-time-unborn child, Aysel."

Yukina moved her hands to heal the raw wound over Kurama's chest but her cherry eyes focused on Asdis's corpselike face, "One day, Aylar followed a demon she was stalking into the Cloud Forest. She crossed paths with Asdis Azariah, the Belladonna. Aylar notoriously insulted the Belladonna, who proceeded to yank out the yuki-onna's teeth.

"The yuki-onna lost her mind in the moments after her teeth's extraction and assaulted Asdis. The Belladonna did not take kindly to that and impaled her fingers in Aylar's eyes. Aylar met her end at Asdis's fingertips, never to be seen again. It was always said that Aylar, the dreaded yuki-onna that preyed on men, still lies asleep in a child's body."

Botan tapped her head with a couple fingers, "I'm sorry, how did this story totally elude us?"

Knowing Botan was about to blame Yusuke for not being more weary, Keiko offered, "Not that I'm familiar with types of demons, but aren't there numerous demons of the same breed?"

Hokushin spoke up, "That's correct, Empress Kei-"

"Please don't call me empress; just call me Keiko," Keiko interjected.

Yusuke lackadaisically assured, "They'll all call ya that; I still can't make 'em stop calling me lord."

Hokushin reiterated, "We simply call you by what you're supposed to be called."

Yusuke looked at Keiko, "You ever gonna call me lord?"

Though Keiko knew Yusuke knew her answer, she felt the need to assert, "Absolutely not."

Yusuke put forth a slight smirk before digressing to Hokushin, "Alright, finish your stupid explanation."

Hokushin, accustomed to Yusuke's negative language, overlooked his king's word choice and finished, "Yes, there are many white tiger demons; they're not a rare breed or anything. As far as her breeding, the child was not alarming."

Keiko observed, "Then Ayame wasn't a red flag as far as being the carrier of a murderous, sleeper soul inside her."

Hokushin nodded, "Correct."

Hiei's eyes were trained on the ground as he related, "During demonic permutation, the former body the soul inhabited, prior to transference, normally becomes inhabited."

Kurama picked up Hiei's line of thought as he gazed at the final layer of his skin healing over and addressed Yukina, "What happened to Aylar's body, Yukina?"

"According to the legend, Aylar's body was inhabited by nikusui. A nikusui retains the youthful appearance of Aylar in her dazzling prime but acts mindlessly, often sucking the flesh from victims' bones," Yukina affirmed as she retracted her hands from above Kurama, who was full-circle healed. "It is also said that Natsuki, Fuyoko's mononoke follower, trailed Aysel after all these years to keep Aylar's soul alive because she was a worshiper of the yuki-onna."

Kuwabara came to a standstill behind Yukina as she arose from her place on the ground and looked at Ayame's cadaver, "So…if that little demon is Aysel, where is Natsuki?"

A couple tears managed to creep out Yusuke's right eye as he quietly contemplated, "The woman in the ranch house…the only chick I've seen been a part of the rebels…that was Natsuki. The last thing I remember before my very first black out was the chant she did while Ayame was being mutilated. I killed Natsuki."

Kurama piped up, "So Natsuki, for whatever reason, joined the rebels, who hate women, despite being a worshiper of an apparition that killed men on an hourly basis. And when she saw Yusuke, a being with measureless power, she permutated Aylar's soul into his body."

Keiko put her two cents in, "But why would Natsuki want to take away the body that was chaining Aylar's soul to this world? Even if it was only to try and get Aylar more power? Why would she take such a gamble?"

Hiei decisively scoffed, "You saw how the yuki-onna's soul was able to exist without a body. She wasn't immediately removed from this world. Perhaps the mononoke knew Aylar's soul would stay attached to Makai."

Mukuro included, "She may be able to exist for a while but she died at some point. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been in the young tiger demon's body to begin with. If you die, you ascend. Her soul will ascend in due time unless she finds another host body."

Kurama lugged a comatose Asdis into his arms, her emerald and amethyst hair rolling into shinning pennants over his arm, "I can almost guarantee Asdis holds the answers to these thrillers but we will have to wait a couple days until she rouses from her metaphysical slumber to get them."

Hiei thundered, "I'm not waiting on that irrelevant enchantress! I will be finding more useful ways to spend my time!"

With the blink of the eye, Hiei was a sable luster as he vanished from sight, giving his best impression of not caring, even though he was obviously only leaving after everyone was physically free from danger. Mukuro bolted after Hiei without a syllable abandoning her still berry-smeared lips. Kuwabara huffed, "After all we've been through, that little blister still ain't worth nothing. So what do we do now?"

Yusuke answered in low tones, "Now we bury Ayame."

The plum sunbeams craned over the sallow acreage as though strained through a kaleidoscope over Makai as Seitei and Isami wiped their dirtied hands onto their disarrayed robes. The dirt from hollowing out a grave for Ayame's itty-bitty body was smeared on their hands and when the two counsel men looked at Yusuke's crestfallen face, they felt even dirtier. Keiko's eyes were trained on Yusuke's hands. They cringed and crinkled like they were grappling onto his mother's clothes as a child and something bad on the playground had happened. Keiko slinked her hand into Yusuke's fluttering one and her fingertips impressed on his knuckles, causing the skin to clump over them. Not caring that Kurama, Botan, Kuwabara, Yukina, and his counsel were watching, Yusuke crouched to the edge of Ayame's place of interment, hands still linked with Keiko's, and draped his legs over the slope of the grave. His free hand jittered as it ran through his hair, securing any loose hair with his already slicked back mane, before cupping his hand over his mouth, elbow resting on his thigh.

As he sat on the side of Ayame's grave, legs dangling inside it, and hands melded with Keiko's, Yusuke nodded and spoke through his hand, "Go ahead."

Isami ventured to say, "Lord Yusuke, perhaps it's best-"

Yusuke removed his hand from his mouth momentarily and corrected- "Perhaps it's best you let her sleep now, yeah? She's been through enough; she was never one for the bullshit anyway."

When Yusuke replaced his hand over his mouth, Seitei and Isami knew Yusuke had spoken and had no intent to change his perception. Isami turned and lifted the mini pine box holding Ayame's soulless body as Seitei hopped into the plot's end. Raising his hands above his head, Seitei retrieved the pine box from Isami and nestled it into the gelid earth. Seitei bounced from the foot of the grave onto the solid land and faced his lord's ancestral son. Yusuke's cinnamon eyes were trained downwards, boring dolefully into Ayame's final resting place. When the raven-haired fighter didn't give any other signal, Keiko knew this was her time to act. Embarrassment be damned.

Keiko stepped to her left to stand behind Yusuke, prompting his arm to follow her movements and cross the front of his torso. She kneeled behind him and wrapped her free arm around Yusuke's neck. Her cheek crushed against the back on his head and she muttered, "We follow rivers, Yusuke."

Keiko didn't see Yusuke toss a handful of dirt into Ayame's eternal bliss.

Later that night, the somewhat collapsed fortress was as silent as a tomb. None of the gang could even get the spirits to laugh while Yusuke was so internally stirred. Despite the lack of laughter, that didn't stop the team of friends from examining the facts. Kurama was, as usual, at the helm, "If the rebels are dressing up as one another, there is a reason. They must be following a commander that requires it or dresses that way himself."

Kuwabara contributed, "And they have eyes everywhere so they know what's goin' on all the time with Urameshi, the goat man, and the shrimp's old lady. We ran into Rinku and Chu when we crossed the barrier. They were going to Gandara to help Toya and Jin fight off rebels."

Kurama implanted, "And Mukuro came after Hiei so I doubt any rebels attacked Alaric or she would've stayed to fend them out of her castle."

Yukina nodded and clasped her hands, "Which means the rebels went after Yomi and Yusuke. Maybe they concentrated all the rebels into those two areas."

Botan seemed to bounce around as she concluded, "Oh, that's smart, Yukina! And then they could reconfigure their forces and full on attack Alaric. Think about it! Yusuke may be the strongest of the three former kings but Mukuro has the best army. It's all about process of elimination!"

Kurama transparently gawked between Botan and Yukina, "That's…actually…very astute."

Botan tried to joke, "I prefer the word foxy!"

Kuwabara rolled his eyes, "Shut up, Botan."

On the northwest side of the fortress, Yusuke was not faring as well as his friends. Keiko had tried every method- manipulation, pleading, threatening- to get Yusuke away from the crumbling balcony of his fortress. However, the love of her life would not resign his odd behavior or disengaged fish eyes. He merely sat at the junction wall between the terrace and the bedchamber and stared into the nighttide sky. Keiko was lumped next to Yusuke and articulated, "What did you see?"

"When?"

"When that demon put a spell over you so they could suck your energy out. What did you see?"

Yusuke didn't respond for an elongated span. When he did, his voice was raucous, "You. I saw you, Keiko. I hallucinated they had you so I couldn't do anything."

"Oh," Keiko delicately opined, unsure of what else to say.

Feeling Keiko's uneasiness, Yusuke attempted to make conversation, "At least we know I ain't totally bonkers, right? My demon blood was off 'cause I had another spirit inside of me."

Keiko conjectured, "That doesn't explain why you jerked me out of Atsuko's apartment. I doubt Aylar did that."

The only semi-smile since Ayame's burial came to Yusuke's face, "Yeah, it does. I don't think Aylar was doing that. I think that my was demon side feelin' possessive over you and I didn't have any control over it 'cause my demon youkai was jacked up."

Keiko said the next thing that came to mind, "There's a ton of unexplained things that are going on."

"Like why Natsuki permutated Aylar out of Ayame? I don't know, Kei, it's just one of those things that don't make sense," Yusuke offered.

Keiko lightly shook her head, "Not just that. There's just too many unanswered questions."

Realizing Keiko wasn't going to break down her thought process any further, Yusuke appealed, "Come 'ere."

Keiko instantaneously abandoned the spot she had stopped her pace in to scamper to Yusuke's side. As she huddled down, Yusuke installed his hands on her hips and schlepped her onto his lap. Her legs branched out beside him and her face magnetized to his chest, on the base of his neck. Yusuke's arms ensnared Keiko's, but she delved her fingernails into his sides, "Ayame can never be hurt again now, Yusuke."

"She can't never breathe again either," Yusuke sorrowfully reminded. "She can't laugh again now. And I almost lost you, too."

"Yusuke-"

Yusuke's head jerked back so he could make eye contact with Keiko's russet eyes, "That demon had a hold around your fuckin' neck, Keiko! He was probably a second away from snappin' it or rippin' it out or some shit! I can't fucking stand this!"

Keiko wiggled an arm free and blended her hand against the back of Yusuke's neck, "But he didn't. I'm fine. Even if I was not alright, this wouldn't be on you. You weren't even conscious."

"I should be your white knight, Keiko! Your guardian angel; your goddamn protector! You're getting new cuts and bruises every day and where the hell am I?"

"You are my white knight. You are my guardian angel. You are my protector. You're my Yusuke and I wouldn't want to have any other life than the one I have with you."

Keiko fused her lips with Yusuke's in an idolatrous and dawdling kiss. Yusuke wasn't as slow to respond as Keiko suspected he would be, but the lip lock didn't get to ardent due to burnt out emotions and prostration. Between the physical and mental taxation of the day, the kiss was lucky to last half a minute. Keiko lunged her nose back into Yusuke's chest as he whispered, "You with me 'til the end of all things, babe?"

"'Til the coupe de grace, Yusuke."

"'Cause that day might come sooner than you think."


End file.
